


Mine Enemy

by Ayrith (freijya)



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Manipulation, Emotionally Compromised, Enemies to Lovers, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone is at an age of consent, F/M, Group dynamics, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Sango had Trust issues, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2018-04-03 08:09:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 55,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4093489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freijya/pseuds/Ayrith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her father taught her that youkai with human faces were dangerous. He should have warned her about hanyous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sango joins the group but is less than happy with her situation.

**Day 1**

Inuyasha's claws were arranged like a row of daggers against her upper thigh.

Sango tried to ignore it. He was not hurting her; in fact, he was bearing all her injured weight up the rocky, dangerous slope leading to the sacred cave of Midoriko. But the skirts of her dress were tangled at her knees and she could feel the keen edge of his thumb against the flesh of her calf. It was a pointed reminder that while the warm, heaving back beneath her arms felt and smelled human it was not. Worse, Inuyasha was not just any demon, he was one of _those,_ the ones that walked among humans: deceiver, shape shifter…predator.

Sango drew in a shallow breath, trying to touch him as little as possible. She could hardly breathe with the bandages around her chest. Every finger was splinted, every joint padded and soaked with numbing salve. She was half drugged and she knew it; it was the only reason she was clinging to this hanyou's back and not fighting for blade-length distance. She hadn't even tried to argue when Kagome had _assumed_ she would be okay with being carried by the man she had tried hours before to kill. No, she wasn't okay. But she couldn't fight everything, not with the image of her family, the night at the castle, on constant repeat every time she closed her eyes.

_The goal_ , she thought. _The goal only matters_. And yet…what would her father say…

Sango reeled away from that thought fast, feeling the tight burn of breathing too much, too soon. Instead, she let her head fall forward and eyes close, forcing a slow exhale. The mountain smelled of mineral and cold springs, of baked wood and tilled soil. It reminded her of the man who tended her wounds when she first woke, no longer buried in the earth. Inky, wavy hair and violet eyes, leaning over her. His fingers brushing her bangs. He had whispered something and she had only been grateful to breathe.

She felt only numbness now.

There was a pause in the steady rocking of Inuyasha's footsteps. He was craning his neck, looking at her with a guarded eye. Yellow and cold like the wolves. Her throat closed for a moment and her hand moved to grapple clumsily at her hip for a blade that was not there.

Kagome was beside her before she could, a hand on her knee. "Which way?" she asked gently.

Sango looked around a canopy of trees, a cascade of rocks on a rising slope, a small winding path. She pointed to it.

The trek up the mountain was as difficult as it always was. Mist clung low to the ground and the moss on the rocks made the path slippery. It was made worse by the dizziness in her head, a steady buzz that grew louder as they climbed in altitude. At some point, her breathing started to come short, desperate. She didn't want to faint—not here, not in front of them—but the longer they climbed, the more she felt as though she was clinging to a precipice by the tips of her fingers.

Only once did she lose her cool. Somewhere between the halfway mark, when Miroku and Kagome had lagged far behind, Inuyasha missed a step. His foot came down on a stone that sunk beneath their weight. His response was quick; a small half-step, a pivot on his heel, and he had recovered. But when his claws tightened on her legs as he corrected himself, claws sliding sharply down her thigh, Sango planted her hands on his shoulders and pushed so hard they almost toppled down.

"What the—crazy bitch—" Inuyasha spun to look at her, but rather than his face she saw that _man_. His eyes a handful of dusty stars. The scar puckering slightly along his jaw. His secret smile, petals like blades, and the way he said, _little fool_.

"Stop" she grit, eyes spinning _,_ pushing as hard as she could until suddenly her wrists were trapped, her back was against a rock, and her vision was filled with silver and fire, amber sparking close to her skin.

" _Hey_." It was Inuyasha, and his expression was serious. " _Taijya_. It's me."

She took a few deep breaths, felt the panic dwindle back down to a tight ball deep in her chest. The rock against her back was steady. The thrum in her head slowed.

After a moment, she said, "I know."

Inuyasha's eyes narrowed. "Then stop calling me _Naraku_."

He might as well have punched her. She flinched, feeling the fluttering of memories stir, but she clamped down. Hard. Suddenly, the places were their skin met felt on fire. "Let go," Sango whispered furiously.

Surprisingly, he did. She wasn't ready for it. Her knees buckled and she would have banged her head against the stone if Inuyasha had not grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Idiot," he bit out. When she tried to grab at his wrists, he shook her. "What do you know?" He was in her face now and his expression was hard. "Or is it just more bullshit?"

She didn't. She wouldn't.

"I _don't know_ ," she snapped. Her throat threatened to close up. "We're wasting time." Her eyes flickered behind him and Inuyasha looked as well. A meter below, the monk was helping Kagome over a particularly large boulder. He seemed completely absorbed, but for a moment, his eyes flashed up and he looked at Inuyasha. Something was said there because a second later the hanyou turned away with a derisive 'keh'.

Quite suddenly, Sango was presented with his back. "Get on," Inuyasha grunted. She hesitated only a moment, before another spell of dizziness made her wrap her arms around his neck. She bit down on a yelp when he abruptly grabbed her legs, claws pricking under her knees. "And this time," he continued, "stay the fuck on."

She might have cursed him. Or shoved him off a cliff and dragged herself up the mountain by her fingers. But her mind hadn't heard him, immediately rooted to those claws dancing along her legs and the sound of her father's voice whispering over and over in her ear.

_The ones with the human faces…they are the most dangerous._


	2. Day 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sango sees demons everywhere.

**Day 15**

Kagome was fast asleep, the fox curled around her belly. Sango's hands itched for her weapon, but there wasn't a point, really. The bandages around her abdomen were too stiff, and without the jewel shard in her back she wasn't very fast. If the kitsune decided to make a move—which she admitted was unlikely, but possible—there wasn't much Sango could do on the other side of the campfire.

Her nightly dilemma, it seemed. Sango sighed.

They had left the Taijya village a fortnight ago. Her strange companions had been oddly kind, helping her with the burying of the dead, allowing her to rest, but within a few days Sango started to feel stifled. She wanted to hunt down Naraku immediately—every day, the trail grew colder, her memory of the castle less distinct. The hanyou, of course, had been all too ready to leave weeks ago. It was the monk and Kagome that were less sure, wanting Sango to rest. Still, she had convinced them that she was fine. The night they set out she felt an odd form of accomplishment.

Until she had seen the kitsune snuggle into Kagome's bed roll like he belonged there.

The next day, she got Kagome alone. "Why do you sleep with the kit?"

"What?" Kagome was busy putting away these weird metal dishes that they had used to cook.

"He isn't yours; why do you sleep with him?" Sango persisted.

Kagome paused, her nose scrunching. "I don't understand," she said slowly. "Don't you sleep with Kirara?"

Sango had dropped it, because it was clear Kagome had no idea what she was asking. It was not the same thing. Youkai by nature were not evil, just as human's by nature were not good. This her father had stressed all her life, and it was the main reason he had insisted Sango train with Kirara since girlhood in the first place. But the walkers, those that took on human form, were by choice duplicitous. Bewitchment, enchantment, illusion. And for those that could not sense the youkia's spiritual energy, the _yoki_ …

All walkers were _predators_. Beneath they're pretty facades, their sweet words and voices, were creatures whose nature was to feed.

It was clear to Sango that Kagome had not been taught these distinctions. Unfortunately, not many were and it was why the job of a Taijya was so important. Part of her wanted to shrug her shoulders and move on, because you couldn't save everyone. She knew this; it had been drilled in her head day in and day out, especially after a hunt that went poorly or a village they had failed to save. Maybe Kagome would be fine today, and tomorrow. Maybe the kitsune child would never harm a hair on her head; often, familial attachments could override primitive instincts at the onset of youkai's transition to adulthood. But that didn't mean Kagome shouldn't _know_ that on another day, with another demon, everything might change.

Kagome mumbled something in her sleep. Long lashes lay quiet against her pale cheeks. Sango sighed. She pressed her back more firmly into the tree. Her vigil would be quiet and long.

A twig snapped to her left and instinctively Sango whirled to her knees. Bright yellow eyes burned into her face a yard away, causing her heart to jump. If he were a little closer—Sango's fingers twitched, before she forcibly relaxed them against the sheathed dagger at her hip.

Inuyasha sat easily on his haunches, claws idly carving the dirt beneath him. Small grooves raced up and down the earth beneath his feet. His expression was unreadable. The light of the fire flickered, catching the sharp lines of his cheekbones, the straight nose, the long curling lashes around those bright, glowing eyes.

Her heart skipped again. Sango grit her teeth, looking at the ground.

"Go to sleep."

She jumped, glancing up in surprise. Inuyasha was glaring, but it had definitely been him. His voice had a certain…sound. Her heart was beating too fast and it was pissing her off that she could hardly hear her own thoughts over its incessant tattoo. She cleared her throat.

"I intend to," Sango said shortly. Kirara was off hunting, and now a days, she could hardly close her eyes without the feel of that fur against her back.

Inuyasha grunted, his lips an angry line. After a moment, he said, "Nothing's going to change."

Sango blinked slowly. "Excuse me?"

" _Her_." Inuyasha shrugged his shoulder in the direction of Kagome. "It doesn't matter what you say to her, she's fucking stubborn." She must have looked surprised, because he sneered. "Do you think I have these ears because I like them? You were fucking loud as hell, asking her about the kit." He paused, eyes drifting back to Kagome. "If she listened, I'd have sent her home ages ago."

Sango stared at the ground at his feet, feeling her muscles tighten with every breathe. "I see," she said, feeling cold. "So you just let her walk with danger because she _won't listen_."

Inuyasha bared fangs. She almost smiled at it. Talking made things confusing. It was too easy to be lulled into complacency, or worse, let her mind fool herself into thinking everything was normal. Threats, she knew how to deal with. Fights, she maybe even loved. Simple, black and white, right and wrong.

Inuyasha clenched a fist in the dirt. "You can _shut up_. You don't know what you're talking about."

_Kohaku squinted in the light, waving his sickle awkwardly at a a fly buzzing near his face and causing Sango's pulse to stutter until he put it down. He was hesitant. "Do you think…do you think I'll do okay?"_

_She held her breath. There was love, and it took all the choices she wanted to make and left her with only the choices she couldn't refuse. "Of course you will."_

Don't _know?_ Like she didn't _know_ what it meant to make risky choices for someone she loved?

Sango narrowed her eyes. Suddenly, she could hardly restrain herself from wanting to punch his jaw out over and over again. "Why don't you just stop there," she warned.

Inuyasha keh'd, standing to his feet. He began walking towards the trees.

_Didn't know._ Like he had even an inkling of what her family meant to her. He couldn't. He was just a…

"Hanyou," she scoffed, turning her back to his retreating form.

She didn't see it coming. One moment she was turning to look at Kagome, the next Sango was shoved forward on her knees, a clawed hand around her neck. Her ribs shrieked in protest. Instinctually, she let the blade on her arm shear free from its sleeve and aimed it back, only for a familiar clawed hand to grab her elbow and grind her arm into the ground. She struggled forward, trying to push up with her other arm.

His weight hit her like a rock. She hit the ground, gasping around a mouthful of dirt. Hot breath stirred the hairs around her ear.

"Your attitude is starting to piss me off," he growled lowly.

Sango forced her head to the side, spitting dirt between her teeth. Her eyes stopped at her arm blade. He was gripping the blade by the shaft. It had cut so deep she could see the white of bone.

Something in her quieted. She fisted the ground, feeling the needle-like leaves prick on her skin.

"Get off me," she said, trembling. She turned to his see his face, angry and so much like—her breath caught and she blinked painfully at the ground. "Get. Off."

She felt his body shift, felt the grip on her neck lessen. He was confused, she could tell. He wanted to understand what she meant, by her words, by her actions. But he wasn't getting _off_.

She gasped a breath, growling out "If you _don't_ …" and than _jerked_ her blade back.

Her blade met air as he whipped his head back. Then, just as quickly as he had come, Inuyasha was gone. Sango scrambled forward and turned around just as Inuyasha landed in a crouch near the tree line. Amber eyes gleamed at her like faceted gems in sunlight. He didn't look at his hand, even as he idly raised it to his lips and licked. She was shaking.

"Don't. Do that. Again." She forced out between heart beats. _Or I will kill you._ The last, though unspoken, was loud and clear.

After a moment, Inuyasha stood up to his full height and crossed his arms. His expression was guarded as he stared down at her. There was something assessing there that she had never seen before—had not thought him capable of.

"Go to sleep," he growled He waited expectantly, but when she did not move, snorted. "Fucking stubborn," he muttered and turned on his heel. In a moment, he had faded into the shadows, as quietly as if he had never been.

Sango didn't care. She wasn't paying attention anymore. She just stared straight ahead, blood pounding.

The forest was dark. Quiet. Eventually, the roar in her head was little more than the rustle of grass by the wind and the crackle of timber.

Slowly, Sango's attention drifted up to the campfire. Kagome was murmuring in her sleep, shifting restlessly in her bag as Shippou slept blissfully on. Sango watched her for a long moment before she carefully scooted back, pressing the bark of a tree tightly to her spine.

She did not go to sleep that night.


	3. Day 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An incident with a demon unearths some ugly truths for Sango

**Day 17**

Two days later and she awoke to the sound of cicadas and a persistent buzz, almost like a beehive was near by. Her hand moved silently to her blade. Kirara gave a little murmur in her throat, still in her large form, eyes slitted and red in the dark. Sango put a hand on her chest.

Something was creeping around the brush. It was being careful. She could hear only the barest stir of leaves and a hypnotic, insect-like hum. Sinking further into the curl of Kirara's body, Sango very slowly moved her head so it appeared she was resting on her side. Eyes narrowed, she peered across the camp.

It sounded like a colony demon. They had some of them up north, closer to the mountains and where there was plenty of room to create their elaborate honey comb caves. Some toxin in their saliva turned stone a pearlescent color. There was a saying amongst the Taijya that if you entered a cave as white as the moon, leave immediately. That, or bring a torch.

The problem with these demons was that like ants, they sent out scouts to retrieve human prey to bring back to the nest. Their throats produced a hypnotizing lullaby that kept prey peaceful and still as they were carried off. Worse, they preferred children.

The sound of this type of demon was one of the first things Sango had learned as a child. Her father, newly widowed and carrying for the sickly Kohaku, had taught his three year old daughter how the cicadas always clicked feverishly, how the smell of sweet grass always grew thick in the air, and how she should always come and get him whenever she grew sleepy. They had made a game of it then, but now Sango remembered how tired and pale he always seemed. She wondered how many nights he spent at her bedside after putting Kohaku to sleep, keeping vigilance while she slept.

A rustle of a tree branch drew Sango's attention to the west. It seemed to be circling, making occasionally clicks. Sango glanced at the fire, then at Kagome and the kitsune sleeping against a nearby tree. Her lips thinned—she had never liked how this group seemed content to sleep out in the open. She hadn't mentioned it before—too busy keeping her distance, the line drawn between them clear. Now, she would have to be swift. A roll to the left, towards the fire where she could grab a lit branch. Insect demons hated smoke. Feeling her palms begin to sweat, Sango readjusted her grip on her blade and prepared to signal Kirara.

"It's back, isn't it?" came a whisper.

Sango stilled, tensing. Her eyes darted to the left, where the light of the fire cast a faint shadow on the monk's features. He was reclined against a tree, posture relaxed and affecting sleep, but there was a curious tilt to his head that was too thoughtful. He also seemed to be addressing something beside him.

Sango waited a breath and was rewarded when there was a slight thump and Inuyasha appeared, crouched at Miroku's elbow.

"No," he grunted back. "I killed the other one—" Other one? Sango thought, alarmed, "—but these bastard like to hunt in pairs." There was a pause. "How are the wards?"

Miroku tilted his head a little more, eyes still closed. "Holding. It knows we are here, but it can't tell where. The repulsion charm should be enough."

Repulsion charms, Sango thought. She had heard of those, but only at expensive establishments which could be lavish with their wealth. While her father had never invested in any, he had said they were quite powerful. And that a monk that could perform one was worth far more than the thousands of mon it would take to even get a small ward.

There was a moment of silence between the men. Inuyasha picked up a small branch off the ground and began delicately carving it with a nail. Sango shuddered slightly at such a careless act, thinking of how those same claws this morning had shredded youkai flesh like rice paper.

Miroku cracked open an eye, stark blue even from this distance. "Do you know why they are following us?"

She saw Inuyasha glance up at her, amber eyes like torches, and she quickly closed her own, heart beating fast. He grunted in the affirmative and made a gesture she did not see, but knew well was directed at her.

He was blaming her? How typical. She slitted open her eyes and watched him turn back to his tree branch.

Miroku studied him a moment. "I thought they are attracted to children," he said finally.

She watched Inuyasha shake his head. "It's not the children," he said quietly.

Sango couldn't take it anymore. She sat up abruptly, pushing her bangs from her eyes. "And would you know that?"

Miroku jumped a little, eyes flicking open to look at where she and Kirara lay. Inuyasha however, began to grumble and glower at his stick. _He knew I was awake,_ she thought.

"Sango," Miroku said, but she ignored him and fixed narrowed eyes on Inuyasha. He stubbornly refused to look back at her.

"Well?" she demanded.

After a moment, he turned cold eyes on her. "Not that it is any of your damn business," he said. "But I used to run into a lot of them as a kid."

"And?," she said shortly. "We all have. That hardly means—"

"It's the smell," he interrupted.

" _Smell?"_

He scowled at her expression. "Fear gives off a scent on its own. The _biyosho_ drink it the way you do water. They use it to spin their cocoons. That is why if you get touched by one, you can't control your fear anymore. It consumes you."

Like she would ever let such a thing touch her. "If that is true, then why children? Why is it always the children?"

He broke off a protruding stem off his branch, face closed. "Children feel more helpless. They give into their nightmares more easily," He wasn't looking at her, but he might as well have. "Their fear is more…"

He didn't continue, but Sango knew where he was going. "Appetizing?" she spat.

He sighed. "You wouldn't understand."

"You are right," she said quietly, getting to her feet. Her fingers trembled. "I _wouldn't._ "

She drew her blade, feeling the delicious thrill of metal against metal sheath. She saw Miroku grip his staff and felt a surge of betrayal—he was a human, but he would defend this _hanyou_ first. But Inuyasha didn't blink an eyelash. He stared at her hard, amber eyes hot and swimming, and even across the distance she had to stifle her rising pulse.

"Excuse me," she said frostily. "But I am going to go kill that thing so that it doesn't get bored and go steal someone's _child_." She turned on her heel swiftly and stalked into the brush. When Kirara tried to rise as she passed, she waved her down. This was her kill.

She was tired of being afraid.

The nightmares hadn't ceased. The ones that had plagued her every night since she'd awoken to the feel of dirt on her face. Ever since, she had awoken from terrible, gut wrenching fear, and even now she could feel that insect hum like a caress on her senses, enticing _her_.

He said it like it was nothing. Being helpless. Afraid. But these were real, terrifying feelings to her, things she couldn't tolerate if she wanted to move forward even another day. She had gotten used to biting her tongue and wiping at her face and thinking, _its morning and I'm alive._

But it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. And she was sick of pretending it would one day.

She found the youkai, slithering anxiously against a line of ofuda. She cut it down with a single stroke and torched it, staying to watch it burn and crumble like dust.

She remembered how terrified she had been as a child of this thing and yet knowing that she could not let Daddy know, because he would worry. Because he might start crying again. Now faced with it, it seemed almost pitable. Pathetic.

When she returned to camp, the fire had dwindled low. Miroku was asleep, or feigning it, and Inuyasha was nowhere to be seen. Feeling exhausted, she buckled down next to Kirara, curling into her mane. She almost didn't feel the scrutiny of eyes somewhere in the dark.

There were still nightmares though. There might...always be.


	4. Day 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sango struggles with recovering.

**Day 20**

_She lay on the floor, under a blanket smelling of clean soap. The maids had cleaned her up as best they could, but she had felt their stares like lacerations on her skin. There was a wound on her stomach that had barely missed her intestines, a deep gouge on her back where her brother's sickle had missed her spine. The doctor couldn't be sure, he told her as he stitched up the wounds, that she would be able to have children._

_She had never wanted any—but now, the thought made her want to cry._

_The prince, Lord Kagewaki, insisted on attending her bedside. He knelt at her head, staring passively outside while a maid peeled down the back of her chest wrap to clean away her blood. She was bleeding, always bleeding. The pain was unbearable. With each pass of the course linen against her spine, blackness surged to overwhelm her. She'd fix her eyes on the prince's silhouette, the cascade of his long wavy black hair, and breathe through her teeth. She would_ not die _._

_That first night, she barely managed it. He had murmured,_ How strong _, as she swam in and out of consciousness. She couldn't be be sure—perhaps she had dreamed it—but she thought she had felt a hand gently touch her hair._

"Sango?"

Sango turned away from her reflection in the stream, which she had been contemplating. The skin on her back stretched painfully taut. Ignoring it, she looked at Kagome, who was kneeling beside her and viciously scrubbing at one of her many odd shirts. The girl had a peculiar desire for cleanliness but strangely, hated doing the washing. She'd started muttering about 'machines' some time ago and Sango had started drifting off.

"Yes?" Sango responded.

"Oh, well umm…" Kagome began, suddenly shy, "while we were out here, I was hoping we could talk about something…"

Sango waited patiently, but Kagome trailed off, suddenly riveted in scrubbing the color right out of her shirt. Her checks were pink. Sango looked down at her own kisode, the checkered pink material still browned with dust, and slowly began to scrub it.

Kagome took a deep breath. "So as you've probably noticed, I'm not really from around here…"

Sango glanced at Kagome's skirt. "Hmm."

A deeper flush. "Well… I don't think any of us have explained exactly how far away," she finished, folding her shirt in her lap.

"Hmm." There was a tear here. Sango frowned at the finger she had wiggled through the fabric. After a moment, she realized Kagome was staring at her, chewing her lip.

"What," Kagome began haltingly, "do you think about the future?"

"The future?" Sango sighed, wondering if she still had her patching needle. "I don't spend much time thinking about it."

"Well what if," Kagome began carefully, "I said that in 500 years, demons no longer exist?"

Sango paused. "I wouldn't believe you."

"Well its true," Kagome said, folding her shirt and turning to her pack. "In 500 years, there are no demons. The villages are so large they cut down most of the trees and replaced them with large stone structures that are hundreds of meters high."

Sango stared at her warily. "Why?"

"So many people," Kagome said. "There are millions of people in the future. And not just in Japan, but all over the world."

Now that Sango could not believe. The Taijya fortress had been fifty men and women strong, one of the largest villages in the area. The land they occupied spanned many acres. But still, it took three days travelling south by the main road before they saw another soul.

Kagome seemed to guess her expression, because she began to pull books out of her bag. Sango had seen her carrying the bound paper stacks before, but she hadn't really looked at them. They were strange, smooth objects with trim edges, unlike the fancy parchment her grandmother used to hoard in the floorboards. When Kagome held one out to her, she took it gingerly between her fingers.

When she opened it, she stared at the first page for a long time.

"Are you a witch?" she asked at last.

Kagome shook her head. She scooted forward on her knees and her hair brushed against Sango's arm, startling her. It was surprisingly soft, like the down feathers of a bird.

"That," she said softly, "is my home."

Kagome talked for a long time. Surprisingly, Sango felt compelled to listen.

It was quite crazy. Insane. Sango didn't understand half of what she said. But the girl wasn't lying either. Her eyes were clear and focused, not shifting up or away when she spoke. She didn't rub her hands or make unnecessary movements. Her grip was unwavering and firm. Sango had learned to trust her own instincts on these matters.

Whether or not it was true, Sango couldn't say. But she was sure that at least Kagome believed fully in what she was saying. For now, that would be enough.

"Okay," Sango said when they had sat silently for a long time, kicking their feet in the water bed. "Perhaps there are things I do not understand. The well, the jewel-I am not an expert on those. But some things simply don't make sense."

Kagome nodded. "Ask."

"Your meeting with Inuyasha," Sango said bluntly. "He just decided not to kill you. Even after you set the subjugation spell."

"Oh, he tried," Kagome chimed in smirking. "He just wasn't fast enough."

Sango looked at her pityingly. Obviously he had not really tried. From what she knew, subjugation was a very little practiced art, as the demon that was cast under the spell would spend the rest of their life hunting the caster down in order to rip them to pieces. If they were generous."Regardless, he stuck around. Why?"

Kagome hesitated. "There is…history between Inuyasha and the Shikon jewel." When Sango continued to look at her, Kagome flushed and looked away. "It's not my story to tell."

_Ah_. Sango looked back at the river.

She was getting used to these silences in conversations, the missing pieces. She and Kagome got along well on most days. They talked about a lot of day-to-day things that reminded Sango of days she'd spend swinging her legs on the porch as Kohaku practiced his throws. However, unlike Kohaku who confided everything to her, there were some topics that Kagome didn't like to talk about. One of them was Inuyasha.

From offhanded comments made by Miroku and Shippou, it seemed that Inuyasha had taken a human lover a long time ago. And it had ended badly.

It made her curious, hard as it was to admit it. Unfortunately, Kagome wouldn't say, and Sango had her pride. She wasn't about to go ask _him_.

There was a rustle of leaves to her left and Sango quickly whipped her head around. But it was only Shippou, peering around a tree. He seemed to be staring at Kagome with a bit of longing; he must have gotten bored playing with his toys and sought her out.

Kagome looked up too, then smiled. "Hey Shippou." She picked up one of her books. "Want to help?"

He was either really desperate to get away from the hanyou and monk or he was really missing Kagome because he nodded quickly and began to scamper over. When he passed Sango, however, he paused and frowned. She looked down at him warily.

"Sango…" he said, nose twitching, a tiny paw wringing his sleeve, "you're bleeding again."

Sango blinked, and looked at her lap, where her stomach wound still ached. Nothing. She reached around with a hand and tried to feel along her back. After some probing, her fingers touched wet fabric. She sighed.

"I see," she said tiredly, making to get up. "I'll take care of it."

When Kagome made to offer assistance, Sango waved her down and headed off in the direction of camp. There were some things Kagome did not like to talk about, but there were some things that Sango would not hear of. Helping her dress her wounds was one of them.

When she arrived back at camp, Miroku and Inuyasha seemed to be in some kind of argument. Argument was not the right word; Miroku seemed to be teasing Inuyasha rather solemnly and Inuyasha wasn't taking it well.

"Where is your sense of adventure?" Miroku was saying, poking Inuyasha's shoulder with his staff and irritating the hanyou. He seemed about to snap back something nasty when he spotted her. His nose twitched and his face turned solemn. Miroku turned, greeting her warmly, but she merely waved and headed to her pack. As she began rummaging through its contents, she could feel their heavy stares, likely fixed on the growing red on her robe.

She was bleeding, always bleeding. She wished it would stop. If only so they would stop staring and worse, pitying her.

As she collected her things, her conversation with Kagome flashed in her mind. She glanced under the sweep of her bangs, seeing that Miroku had returned to prodding Inuyasha's shoulder.

Inuyasha wasn't paying attention. He was still staring.

Sango narrowed her eyes.

The sun seared hot across Sango's neck as she shifted the strap of Hiraikotsu from digging deep into her collar bone. Beneath her yukata, her taijya suit clung and chaffed. She looked at Kagome strutting ahead with her large bag, skirt flapping freely, and bit back a scowl. All the walking was a waste of energy. She was used to the breath of the wind on her face as Kirara took to the air, watching the miles fall away into a stream of green and yellow leaves beneath a horizon hot and red and untouchable.

But those where also the days her back wouldn't split open like a ripe fruit from a little riding. Sango breathed shallowly, feeling the grip of her chest bandages. Her back still looked like a bloody mess, and it hadn't helped that her last change had been rather brutal. Sweat had caked into the fabric and she'd had to rip it off piece by piece, biting a leather cord the whole while. It would never heal if they kept getting into skirmishes like the one a few hours ago against ogres. Smoke bombs and iron blades only went so far with thick skinned demons. Only Hiraikotsu could cut through their hide-she'd barely managed it, much to her chagrin.

"There is a village, up ahead," Sango said abruptly from the back of their entourage. Kagome flipped around, head tilted to the side as she walked backwards. Inuyasha ignored her. Miroku stopped and leaned against his staff. His gaze was unreadable as she approached, but when she moved to pass him he smiled and stepped with her.

"Have you been there before?" he asked politely.

"A few times," Sango said, adjusting her strap. "They have a small fishery on the river." Her father had loved to stop by when they were in the area.

Miroku put his hand to his chin, squinting at the sky. "Salmon?"

Despite herself, her lips curled up. "Fresh."

He hummed, then clapped his hand. "I believe," he paused. "I believe I sense a dark cloud near by."

Sango blinked, brow wrinkling. She looked at Kagome for clarification, but the girl was just rolling her eyes, smiling. Inuyasha, however, whirled around.

"No you don't," he snapped. "We've only been on the road for a few hours and we haven't even passed through the valley yet. It's not even sun down!"

Sango grimaced, glancing at her own white knuckled grip. Miroku just shrugged, staff jingling. "Inuyasha, we can't make bad things come and go at our convince just because we wish them to."

Inuyasha's brows narrowed dangerously. "What the- you do that all the time!"

Kagome patted the strap of her strange bag. "I for one " she said, "could use the rest. This bag is killing me."

"Of course you would," Inuyasha said scathingly. Sango tensed, turning burning eyes on him. He continued, "That is what you get for packing so damn much."

"Necessities, Inuyasha!" Kagome snapped back. Then she turned to Sango, smiling. "Now where did you say the village was?"

"Over the hill if we take a left." She pointed ahead, where the path forked. In the distance, they could see the trail of smoke from many campfires.

"To the left," Miroku said and began walking. He passed Inuyasha without a glance. Kagome gave a little 'humph' and also stalked past. Inuyasha glared at their backs as if they had stabbed him, muttering curses to himself.

Sango moved to follow. As she passed the hanyou, Shippou scampered past her feet and crawled swiftly onto the hanyou's shoulder. He tugged on a lock of white hair.

"Quit your whining, Inuyasha," he said, then squeaked and jumped off as Inuyasha made a swipe at him.

"We're wasting damn time," the hanyou snarled.

Before she moved too far away to hear, she heard Shippou reply softly, "Don't be stupid…can't you smell it?"

Her grip on Hiraikotsu tightened.

She drank too much. She'd known it, but somehow chasing the liquid in her cup had seemed a far better option then setting about washing her filthy, bloody clothes- again. Instead, she had settled for kneeling at the dinner table, fingers wrapped around her cup, watching Miroku make a fool of himself in front of dancing girls. Every time he would make a grab for their waists, they would titter and twirl away. Kagome kept giggling beside her, keeping up a rolling commentary. The fox lounged far too close. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the profile of the hanyou's back as he leaned against an open door frame staring moodily into the darkness.

She'd felt a little claustrophobic, and her cup had been warm. As she drank, a cool hazy cloud had settled over her and it was damn frightening the sudden lack of care she felt about getting drunk among these people.

So she'd locked herself in a room until she came to her senses, retreating to the farthest corner and curling into a ball. Kagome had popped her head in a few times, but Sango's lack of response had sent her away. She was glad, despite herself. She just wanted to be alone, damn it. To think. If only she could actually think properly.

Sango closed her eyes, gripping her head. When she looked up again, there was a pair of gold eyes staring through the crack in the door.

She almost screamed. She almost threw a dagger at his face. At least her mind did. Her body didn't even budge.

"What?" she managed after a moment, swallowing around dry, cracked lips.

There was a rustle, then something tossed toward her. She flinched, but whatever it was it fell short, rolling near her feet with a thud.

It was a leather bag. It smelled strongly of greens.

She stared at it blearily. "What is it?"

"It will help your back," he grunted. When she made no move to touch it, he rolled his eyes. "Fine. Suffer. See if I care." He was gone.

Sango hiccuped, staring at the ground. She could barely discern the edge of the leather thong that held it closed. The leather looked polished. New.

After a moment, she snatched up the bag.

Too much to drink.

After the haze of alcohol had faded, her mind had seemed unerringly sharp. Her thoughts had returned to the river, to her dream the night before. _A memory._

Slipping out into the night had been pitifully easy, her silent steps out the door punctuated by Kagome's soft noises as she dreamed in her sleeping bag. Shippou had bunked with Miroku tonight, and without the yellow eyes of Inuyasha watching her every move, she had felt a deep tension unclench in her. One she hadn't known was even there, until it was gone.

From there, it had been quick work finding the old dilapidated shack on the edge of town. After five years, it still looked like one giant pissing hole. So did its occupant.

"Haven't seen you around these parts in a _long_ while," the man said, licking his fat lips and eyeing her silhouette. He mouthed the word 'long' in a way that made her stiffen. Stringy hair couldn't hide the grease and sweat smeared across his chin, nor the scars like finger marks on his cheek.

He was old and dirty and if he took another step towards her she would cut off his hand.

She kept her face blank. Giving openings to men like this was asking for trouble. "Information. Nothing else."

"Aww, don't be like that, girly. I-"

" _Excuse me_ ," she interrupted coldy. "Who _exactly_ are you talking to?" She took a step forward through his door way. In the light of his fire pit, the black leather and bone armor seemed to gleam. As did the blade she was playing with in her hands. He took a step back.

"W-what do you want?" he growled.

She contemplated her blade until he began to sweat. Only then did she look at him, and what he saw in her face made him shrink back.

"…Have you heard the name Kagewaki?"


	5. Day 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Battle with the water god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN/Disclaimer: While this is beginning to diverge from canon, this chapter is still heavily influenced by canon events and dialogue. Therefore, I want to reiterate that I don't own Inuyasha or anything about it.

**Day 26**

Inuyasha would not stop pestering her about the castle.

They were sitting on another hill top, overlooking a small valley. To the east, a wide river twisted its way down the valley, leading to a dense evergreen forest and a wide calm lake. To the south, a road descended into a small village. She remembered it. The distance between the rice paddies and the fields and the houses formed a sharp triangle of equal sides. She remembered pointing it out to Kohaku, who had quietly rolled his eyes even as he uttered respectively, 'yes, sister'.

She liked shapes, geometric ones, patterns that stood out starkly against the looser curves of nature. She had liked the road: a straight arrow through the sloping hills, leading directly to the sprawling estate of the Hitomi clan. Now, the road led…no where. There were no row upon row of red rooftops in the distance, no gleam of torches, no garden with blossoming fruit trees. Just an endless field of grass rippling to the line of the horizon, empty like her hopes.

"Where is it?" Inuyasha growled. He was staring at her, flexing his claws in agitation, but she only looked at that green field in silence and felt a cold seething inside. Her expression was blank but it was only the mask of a professional, and one that chaffed; she had the disjointed sense of wanting to tear something apart and knowing that she could not lose her temper here, in front of the others. She could not let them know how deep this cut.

"I don't know," she felt herself saying. The wind, which had kicked up in the last few hours, tore at her dark hair and the strands danced tauntingly in her field of vision as a spidery darkness.

"You don't seem to know _anything_ , do you?" Inuyasha snapped.

Kagome stomped her foot. " _Inuyasha_ ," she hissed. For some reason, the girl felt responsible for curbing Inuyasha's wrath. Sango thought she shouldn't bother; usually, it was Kagome who ended up the most hurt for her attempt.

"We don't need _more_ useless baggage," he sneered back, right on que. Kagome stiffened, her cheeks reddening, and the pitch of her voice was a little higher when she snapped back.

As the two started to argue, Sango easily tuned them out. Inuyasha's words stung, but it wasn't anything he hadn't already said or she hadn't already thought. She'd spent a week of sleepless nights sneaking out, avoiding Inuyasha's watch, tracking down the barest of leads her old contact had begrudgingly given her and still hitting dead end after dead end. A soldier that might have been a station guard—but no, his family hadn't seen him for months. A girl that might have been a maid—but no, she had never gone, after finding a suitable husband to marry. They all knew who their lord was, but for some reason, no one could not tell her how to _find him._

Finally, she had thought she might have something. A merchant who yearly took the long road east during the summer months remembered stopping by the local lord's castle on a few occasions, when they could offer wares and entertainment. He remembered there had been a beautiful lake that his caravan could not drink from, as it was the home of a _kami_.

Sango had left that merchant in triumph. Then she'd spent another few days trying to casually convince the group to take this particular road without letting them see how convinced she was that they were getting closer. Without letting them see the eagerness growing in her like a fever, a disease.

Now there was only the impotency of her rage and the tremble in her fingers. Everything else—her vengeance, her peace, her _father's grave,_ her _brother's bones_ —were gone like they had never been.

She could only close her eyes as Miroku, standing beside her, said gently, "Perhaps we should stop looking for the castle."

The argument behind them cut off abruptly. Inuyasha kicked something, cursing. She heard Kagome retreat angrily to where Shippou curled in a nap on their packs. The wind picked up. She heard the almost melodic jingle of Miroku's staff next to her ear, his body breaking the wind and giving her reprieve, the occasional flick of his dark robe against her arm. She felt his eyes, gentle, on her face. "Is that okay with you?" he said quietly. "I know you want to find him as soon as possible, but…"

She opened her eyes and looked at him, feeling the exhaustion of the week hit her. He was kind. She wanted to be grateful for that kindness, even if her body wanted to physically reject his words. "I understand. It is…" She searched for a word that wasn't _agony_. "…it is just annoying," she eventually added.

Silence fell over the group for awhile, until Inuyasha grunted the question everyone was thinking. "What now?"

Miroku sighed. "What else? Jewel shard hunting. By looking for them, we shall surely find Naraku."

This was true, Sango knew, but… She turned her eyes to the valley, lips pressed into a thin line. She couldn't help but feel that doing anything else besides search for that bastard was an elaborate waste of her time.

Away in the distance, she could see a train of villagers leave the town entrance, heading towards the large river. They were carrying some kind of pagoda. She wanted to ask them about the castle. Surely they would know something?

"Let us at least investigate the area," she said, turning away to move towards where she had lain Hiraikotsu. She ignored Miroku's sigh. What was a few more hours of search? What harm could it be?

Two hours later they had been contracted to kill a water god.

While the others were discussing details with the head villager's son, Sango found some cover between trees and pulled out her taijya suit. In the last few days, due to the unbearable heat and their uneventful travel down a heavily frequented road, she had forgone the clothing for the more breathable fabric of her yukata. It had been the first time since her family's death that she had allowed herself to stow it away, but now, feeling the fine cloth shift and ripple between her fingers, she felt a stab of anxiety. It felt almost of a betrayal, in a way, to wear the clothe of her village and waste its protection on anything other then vengeance.

But her father would have helped. He would have taken the time to help those in need, even in the middle of a contracted clean up. The thought sustained her as she dragged the suit over her legs and arms and the aching flesh of her back.

Unfortunately, it all went down hill after confronting the god. They hadn't factored in that a holy weapon could shut down Tetsusaiga so completely. Worst of all, Inuyasha was a menace. He couldn't keep his mouth _shut_ to save his life, and before any of them knew it, they were drowning, sinking to the bottom of the lake.

Sango had never been afraid of water, but when she opened her eyes to see the shrine on its stilts high above her head, she…panicked. She felt Hiraikotsu drag her down into the black depths of the lake and it felt too similar to that terrifying moment she'd woken to being buried _alive_. She thrashed wildly, trying to kill her impulse to cry out.

Light caught her eye, and she strained toward it, kicking helplessly. There was Inuyasha, silver hair gleaming like a moon in the dark water. He was looking around wildly. There was Miroku, clutching for floating reeds. There was Kagome and the child, fighting against the whirlpool tide. But no one noticed her, sinking like a dead weight and she almost screamed—then amber eyes found her. She was grateful, even when they widened, even when he lunged—

Something hit her in the center of her back and then there was darkness.

_She had propped herself in front of the door to her room, and she wasn't moving no matter what the maids said. It was tiring looking only at the ceiling or floor without even a window to peer through. There were no wall hangings or fixtures save a small, old table with a bowl of water with which they washed her wounds, and she'd rather throw it at a wall then stare at it for hours._

_Perhaps she would have been more comfortable if she didn't feel like she was being watched. Even with the doors closed, the latches shut, even on the days when the maid didn't sleep nearby to keep watch, she could not escape the feeling that there was something in this room. And that it was waiting for her to finally see it._

_So she had propped herself against one of the sliding doors to the inner garden, because the agony of dragging herself inch by inch across the hard floor was worth the open cold air on her face. The view was also nice. There was a little pond a few steps away. At night it glowed like a well of silver, its smooth surface disturbed occasionally by questing koi fish. In the morning, she could watch the birds sing their daily chorus as they pecked at the ground for seeds._

_A flash of purple caught Sango's eye before she turned her head to contemplate the trees. The lord of this castle spent a surprising amount of time in this garden. He would come in from the south gate, walk the perimeter, feed crumbs to the koi in his pond, and recline against a stone perch to watch the sunrise._

_She heard the maids whisper and got the feeling he was rather sickly, something she had newfound sympathy for. Sometimes she would catch herself watching him, usually on those particularly bad days when she couldn't pretend her body was fine and she needed a distraction. But mostly she minded her own business. She knew what it was like to want to be alone._

_Her gaze was drawn to a small sparrow perched on a tree branch, dipping his beak into one of the many blossoms in search for bugs. The delicacy of its feet and wings made her wistful. She wished she had a talent for inks and paints. She wanted to commit to memory the shape and color of this yard, the smell of bread rising, the sound of the grass and leaves muttering in the wind._

_She didn't know when exactly she fell asleep. It wasn't real sleep, because she still felt the throbbing in her body, a pulsing cage. But she had dozed, wandering into a dark place and found a door. She hesitated on its threshold, wondering if she dare enter its dark depths, afraid of what she would find._

_Distantly, she heard footfalls, steady like a heart beat. A shadow cast over her face. A body, crouching beside her. Someone's long hair brushed against her arm. And then a finger, large and calloused, touched the skin of her hand. Alarmed, she struggled to consciousness, but found the darkness clung to her like sticky cobs. She could hardly move—the barest flutter of her lashes._

_She felt that finger trail up her arm, then curl lightly around a strand of her hair._

_"Wake up, little bird," he whispered._

Sango woke up to Inuyasha's amber eyes as he breathed air into her mouth.

Her mind went into shock but her body reacted on instinct. Her hand flew up but Inuyasha reared back in a flash and she felt only the tips of his bangs on her finger tips. By the time she had struggled into a sitting position, he had retreated a good distance away, crouched on all fours and glaring.

She opened her mouth…and found _herself_ turning on all fours, heaving and choking as her lungs expelled all the water she had swallowed, and then all the contents of her stomach. Her mind spun with panic and pain, her arms shook trying to hold her up, and unbidden tears streaked down her face. Distantly, she felt hands pull her hair away from her face as she heaved.

Eventually, the gasps she pulled in felt like _air_. She almost fell into her own filth, but hands caught her shoulders, pulling her away and she clutched at them, tucking her head into the corner made by her shoulder and his wrist and just _breathed_. No water, no dirt, no grave and silence, just the sound of her lungs and Inuyasha's heartbeat through the thin skin of his wrist on her forehead.

If it had been Miroku, he would have said something comforting. _It's all right, everything's going to be fine, you're safe now._ Inuyasha said nothing, and eventually she realized that he was no longer really holding her up; she was clutching _him_. She let him go abruptly, a hand fisting in the dirt, and watched as he dropped his arms and sat back.

The sat in silence for a moment.

When Inuyasha continued to stare at her, she felt heat rush into her face and tried not to cringe. She felt _embarrassed_ … More embarrassed about that pitiful display she had made then anything he had done, trying to save her life. She looked up hesitantly, caught Inuyasha's wary stare. But when he opened his mouth, ears flat against the top of his wet hair, she interrupted him with, "are the others okay?"

He frowned. Then, "I'm not sure—"

He cut himself off and whirled around. Sango tensed, hand going to the blade in her sleeve and peered over his shoulder.

Miroku's body was floating towards them. No, it was being…pushed towards them. By _fish_.

Much later, after they had restored the real water god and battled with the false one, Sango would still remember that conversation with the kami servants. Not because of the content, but because of the way Inuyasha had stood slowly to his feet afterward, his face black with his rage.

She didn't know why anger made him look so beautiful and terrifying.

"We should rescue the real god…" Miroku had started to say.

" _Fuck_ the gods," Inuyasha burst out. "And fuck that _bastard_. I don't care if he's got a holy weapon. I don't need Tetsusaiga to rip his fucking heart out." And then, without any real plan and the all too real possibility of losing, the fool had strode away to the shrine to rescue Kagome.

And Sango had stared at his back, knowing what she _should_ do, knowing what only a _fool_ would do, but with the creeping sensation that something had changed. Maybe it had been the dream. Some of it had been memory but she wasn't sure which parts were real anymore and it had frightened her more than she wanted to admit. Her life was a fragmented mess and spinning more and more out of her control.

But even if they _didn't_ have a plan…hadn't she promised herself she wouldn't be afraid? Inuyasha didn't hesitate. And if _he_ refused to bend, then why should she?

When she touched Miroku's shoulder briefly, he merely sighed and shook his head. "Go on. Keep him alive till I get back," he said wryly.

Nodding, she picked up Hiraikotsu and followed after the hanyou. It felt a little like walking willingly to her own death and her heart pounded in her chest.

But they did win. And she did keep him alive. Barely.


	6. Day 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sango loses it.

**Day 28**

Sango felt his glare like a sunburn on her back. The girl she was trying to coax into conversation flicked her eyes nervously behind Sango, made a hasty bow and an apology, and scurried away before Sango could call out to stop her. The taijya sighed sharply, anger simmering beneath her skin, before giving a sharp look over her shoulder. The hanyou, leaning against a fence several feet away with his arms folded over his chest, only turned up the intensity of his own glare. Sango’s temperature spiked at his proximity. Yesterday, he’d kept his distance. Today, he wasn’t even attempting to hide it; he was outright _following_ her now.

Sango grit her teeth, staring at the row of huts along the road and wrestling with herself. She did _not_ want to admit defeat, but any more attempts at collecting information were going to backfire on her. Inuyasha was being aggravatingly persistent. She hadn’t been surprised that he was angry at playing the decoy during the battle with the water god, but it had been two days now and he needed to _let it go_. His constant scrutiny and hovering made the townsfolk nervous. It made _her_ nervous.

But he didn’t need to know that. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She straightened her yukata, patted the dust on her knees, smoothed her hair. When she turned to Inuyasha, there was only a serene expression on her face.

“Did you want something?” she asked. She was tired of beating around the bush.

Inuyasha merely sneered at her, then turned to stare into the crop fields like he couldn’t be bothered with stupid questions. Sango stifled the impulse to throw something at him. Despite his adamant insistence he was fine, he was in fact still noticeably injured, bruises peppering his body in sickening colors. The angle of his head right now particularily highlighted the bruise around his neck, where the water god had tried to strangle the life out of him. Even after two days, it was still a sickly purple. She thought it odd that it was taking so long to heal when normally by now it would be gone, but no one seemed to think anything of it so she kept it to herself.

She made to pass him when he suddenly stepped in her path. She stared at his chest, far too close, then slowly lifted her eyes. He was a head taller than her, but somehow he made it seem vastly larger. He was scowling fiercely.

“I want to get one thing straight,” he said, and the mottled yellow finger mark bruises on his left cheek were hard to ignore. “I don’t need your help.”

Two days of brooding and this was he wanted to say? He needn’t have bothered. He’d been saying it with his looks for _days._

Sango didn’t say anything for two minutes, just surveyed him carefully. He had his hands fisted in his sleeve, but last she’d seen they had looked enflamed, the cuts along the knuckles bloodless. Fortunately, Kagome had convinced Inuyasha to at least bandage them but she wondered if infection had set in by now. He had been elbow deep in snake guts by the end.

Inuyasha shifted to his other foot, stilled half way, then deliberately continued though with the motion. She wasn’t sure if it was coincidence or the beginnings of a pattern, but Inuyasha was only absolutely still when he was in a great deal of pain.

“You should get that looked at,” she said quietly, ignoring his statement.

That threw him off momentarily. He squinted at her. “What?”

“Your leg.”

His eyebrows drew down. He scoffed. “It doesn’t matter. It’ll heal soon enough.” Oddly, that last part sounded quite bitter. She filed that away to think about later.

Sango crossed her arms. “Of course it matters. You take really poor care of yourself. If you were a human, I can’t imagine how you’d have survived till now.”

He sneered, shoulders tense. “What do you care?”

Her first impulse was to roll her eyes, but then she stopped and looked at him and realized he was serious. She ground her teeth together, annoyed. Certainly she wanted to throw him over a bridge every other day and traveling together didn’t make her _like_ him, never mind trust him. But did she look like the kind of person who wished for his pain? Besides, it was entirely inefficient.

“How can I not care when you have my life in your hands?” she said, and felt something like success when he seemed to actually digest her words for once. “No matter if we like it, we’re a team now.”

At his snort, she gave him a warning look. “You and the others were a team before I was ever around. You should know this. Even a team of necessity, like ours, should be greater than the sum of its parts. Everyone helps. Everyone _needs_ help.”

His face pinched. “I don’t fight with others. And I don’t _want_ your help.”

Sango pressed her lips together, breathing sharply through her nose. He was so juvenile sometimes she wanted to slap him. “Fine. You’ve said your piece, and it was unnecessary because I don’t really care what you want. But just so you know, it wasn’t really help. It was repayment.”

That seemed to surprise him. His ears flattened on his head and then he looked at her suspiciously. “—For what?”

“For the herbs. They helped a great deal.” She flexed her shoulders, feeling the skin pull taut with pain but it didn’t break and it made her happy. Then she cleared her throat. “And also—for helping me when I almost drowned.”

He stared at her. Slowly, the ears on his head righted themselves again. It struck Sango as oddly endearing, especially coming from him. She didn’t know what to make of it.

“I still don’t want your help.”

Sango rolled her eyes and pushed past him. This time he let her.

It was sundown and she was almost to the camp after a wash in the stream when she heard voices. She paused against a tree, a breeze playing across her face. The opportunity of being downwind and immune to scent-sensitive youkai was too hard to ignore.

“Just leave it be.” That was Inuyasha. Furious was a normal state for him, but the quiet menace in his voice was new and it immediately set her teeth on edge.

“But Inuyasha, nobody is here to judge you, you don’t have to—"

“I said _no_ , Kagome. And don’t you _dare_ go back on your promise.”

Sango’s eyes narrowed, intrigued, but Kagome merely made an offended sound. “Of course I won’t, I just—“

“Then shut up already,” Inuyasha snapped. “It’s not your problem, you don’t have to fix it and you don’t have a say in how I do things.”

Kagome sputtered incomprehensibly for a moment, then made noise of frustration. Sango imagined she was pulling her hair. “Miroku! Say something to him!”

That heavy sigh was distinctly, characteristically the monk. “I’m not getting into this—“

“Damn straight you’re not.“ Inuyasha interrupted heatedly.

Feeling like enough was enough, Sango pushed through the trees to see Inuyasha and Kagome staring each other down. They didn’t acknowledge her, though the conversation had clearly died prematurely. She looked around and saw that Miroku had his back to them, rifling through one of the packs. When she looked back, it was to see Inuyasha bound up into the trees and disappear. Kagome had turned her glare at the ground, scuffing her shoe at the rocks.

She approached cautiously. “You all right?”

Kagome whirled around. Her smile was painfully bright. “Oh yeah. _I’m_ fine, Sango. Why don’t we start dinner?” She began to walk away quickly.

Sango’s gaze drifted to the direction Inuyasha went. “What about him?”

If that conversation hadn’t been about her, she’d eat her sandal.

“I wouldn’t worry about him,” Kagome snapped, and Sango raised an eyebrow. “ _I’m_ certainly not going to.”

“Okay,” she said, because honestly she wanted to laugh. Kagome was always entertaining when she was mad, like a ferocious kitten. She muttered all through out dinner, talking to herself and jabbing her meat with vicious little stabs. Sango found herself exchanging amused glances with Miroku, then aiding Shippou in his attempts to cajole giggles out of Kagome.

For the first time, it felt like things were beginning to click. She wondered what would happen when Inuyasha finally showed his face, but he didn’t show up for dinner. In fact he didn’t show up the entire night. Frankly, Sango was just fine with that.

When Sango finally retired into the warmth of Kirara’s back, she stared up into the pitch black sky with a sense of relief. It was the new moon. She loved the new moon. The real moon was too much like an eye, a silent watcher, a witness to her nightmares.

That night, with no moon and no eyes watching her, she slept better than she had in a very long time.

**Day 29**

She should have known it was too good to last.

Perhaps it was because her back was healing well. She was getting close to passable fighting capacity again, and no longer had to engage from afar on the side lines. Perhaps it was also because the success of her last battle had given her a little expectation. Mostly, though, it was because now that she was actually paying attention, evaluating the pace and flow of a battle like had once been her job, she wanted to kick herself over and over again. How had she gone a month— _a month_ —without seeing things clearly?

She watched with something like resentment as Inuyasha sliced through the air without conscious thought to where his team mates were and just— _ripped_ the earth apart. Trees toppled like twigs. There was a thunderous boom, the ground quaking beneath their feet, and she watched Kagome tumble to the ground. The wave of energy from his sword, spinning and coalescing like a living hungry thing, rushed forward in a mad frenzy and even from this distance Sango felt thick fear rush down her throat and spine. The demon, eyes glassy and hypnotized by the oncoming attack, didn’t stand a chance.

None of them did, Sango realized, as she was nearly tossed to her knees when the wind whipped wildly to fill the vacuum the windscar had made. None of them stood a candle to him. She wanted to curse the world at the unfairness of it.

Oh, he wasn’t a team player all right. In all honesty, he had warned her. She just didn’t think he had meant it quite like _this_.

In the aftermath, Inuyasha stood from his crouch, cocked a hip, swung his sword over his shoulder, and fucking grinned. And with that, the battle was over.

Sango _lost_ it.

She slammed Hiraikotsu into the ground so hard that Shippou squeaked and scrambled away from her. She left her weapon tilted there and stalked toward the corpse, past Miroku who was wiping blood from his forehead, past Kagome who was still sitting shell shocked on the ground. Inuyasha, the _bastard_ , was still grinning with manic delight at the dead demon like it was his name day and not at all like he had _over did it_ —

He turned to look at her, his eyes dark with battle lust, his hair a silver cascade. His bruises were entirely gone like they had never been and he seemed fairly glowing with health. His grin made him look positively wicked but none of it could make her pause. Her heart was already pounding. Sango clenched her fist as she approached, but he didn’t seem to notice. He’d started laughing. “See? I told you I don’t need—“

She punched him with a crack. The backlash instantly travelled through her arm making it numb all the way to the shoulder, and she spat a curse. As punches went, it was the most unsatisfying thing she had ever done. Inuyasha’s face hardly moved under her fist but something had to give and when she drew back, shaking her hand, she knew without looking that her knuckle had split almost to the wrist. His expression flickered into bewilderment—damn it how dare he not feel it—and so she twisted seamlessly, driving her other fist into his gut.

She must have nicked a rib, because she felt something sharp cave and pop and she heard him grunt painfully—and then it was her turn to smile, a rictus of perverse pleasure.

Kagome gasped behind her. “Sango!—“

Inuyasha _snarled_. She heard his sword drop with a clatter and threw herself back in time to miss his fist flying over her head—and great fucking gods that probably would have decapitated her. She almost drew her blade at that point but forced herself to stop, because she had started this after all and there was actually a point to it. She wasn’t going to pummel him because it’d make her feel better, although it certainly would.

Inuyasha flexed his claws, eyes a molten lava. “You _bitch_.”

Sango’s bared her teeth. Forget it. She was going to hurt him and it was going to feel _wonderful_.

Sango drew in a breath. Like her father had taught her, she wrapped her growing fury into a tiny pinprick of focus, folding it over and over and over until it was a bright hot spot in her mind that eclipsed all pain. Her trembling ceased. Her breathing eased. All sound became a background lull except the shift of his clothes against his skin, his ragged breath, and the pound of her own heartbeat as it tapered into a slow tempo. She exhaled through her nose and as she did so shifted her stance along with it: straightening, hands raised to chest height and open palmed, her legs bent and loose.

Of all the styles of fighting the Taijya had been trained in, hand-to-hand was perhaps the least used and least practiced. One did not grapple bare handed regularly with ogres unless they had a death wish. But she had been the headman’s daughter, one of the best, and a woman. That had changed things. Changed what she had to take, what she had to prove, and who she had to prove it to, over and over again.

She was no longer smiling, but she raised an eyebrow and then beckoned him with a finger.

“You are going to regret that,” he spat, and then launched at her, a clawed hand aimed for her throat.

She tilted her cheek, feeling a line of fire along her skin, brushing his arm askew with the back of her hand and moved into his exposed side. She could have killed him right there, youkai or no, with a blade to the heart. Instead, she brought her fist to the very same spot she had before and gave two sharp jabs. She felt him gasp, crumpling for a brief second, but knew it wouldn’t last. So she crouched low, wrapped both fists in his shirt, pivoted on her feet and used the momentum to _throw_ him into the nearest tree. And because he weighed nothing to Hiraikotsu, his back broke the branch beneath him and he skidded, tumbling, into a pile of leaves several feet away.

Sango’s thoughts were racing, her eyes evaluating their surroundings, cataloguing what she could use against him. She was at the clear disadvantage, so she’d have to be fast, catch him in his blindspots. She took a deep breath, then turned her focus to his prostrate form. She took two quick steps forward.

She ran straight into a body. Soft black hair filled her face and her mouth, a pair of hands gripped her arms. She barely tamped down on the instinct to lash out, and the effort left her slightly disoriented. She glanced down to see Kagome, fear tight in her expression, mouth open in distress. It was enough to throw her concentration and with a rush sound returned to her ears.

“—Sango, stop, please. Just stop.”

She looked at the girl—her face was smudged with dirt, the corner of her lip red and bleeding, her eyes wide and liquid—and knew it was over before it began. Sango bit back a curse, feeling the loss of the fight keenly, her adrenaline puddling uselessly in her veins. She looked up to see that Miroku was now standing between her and Inuyasha, his staff brandished. His back was to her and for a moment it bewildered her. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

It took her a moment to realize what that meant, but rather than feel a rush of pleasure at how fast things had changed, she only felt a deep annoyance. They weren’t trying to stop her because they thought she could hurt Inuyasha. They were stopping her because they were afraid Inuyasha would hurt _her_. She bit back a scowl.

There was a rustle of movement and Sango looked up to see Inuyasha raising slowly to his feet, leaves falling from his body in a tumult, his eyes so dark amber they were almost black. Her adrenaline spiked again, warmth spreading through her limbs at the thought that she had gotten the jump on him and they both knew it. She watched with satisfaction as he spat dirt from his mouth, wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I am going to _kill_ you—” he gritted, stepping forward.

“Why?” she interrupted coldly, because satisfaction aside, this had been the real point. When Kagome made a sound of distress, she put a hand on her arm. Inuyasha saw it and he hesitated, confused. Sango continued, “Why should you? These are my skills, one of many. I have spent years honing them to be what they are against men like you and despite your insulting assumptions I assure you, I can do more than just toss you into a tree.”

Miroku was shooting her disapproving looks, still facing Inuyasha in a defensive stance, but Sango didn’t care. She didn’t understand why she was the one that had to say these things—surely the monk was the one that suffered the worst from Inuyasha’s total disregard.

More calmly, she said, “I am good at what I do, when I am allowed to do it. We all are, when given the right roles to play.” She gestured at Miroku, then at Kagome who was staring at her wide eyed. Then her eyes narrowed. “It is _you_ that seems to think we have no role at all.”

Inuyasha stood up straight. He turned his gaze to Miroku and the two men stared at each other for a long time. Inuyasha was the first to break, turning his eyes on Kagome, but the girl was now clutching Sango’s taijya suit, staring resolutely at nothing. Begrudgingly, his eyes looked back at her.

“I told you,” he was saying, and he was still angry but it was a simmer compared to before. “I don’t fight with others. Never have—“

“Then why are you even _here_?” she asked, and really it was the one thing that she kept coming back to over and over again.

His eyes snapped again, temper in full force, and it was almost shocking how fast it could be turned on. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. Why the fuck are _you_ here? You’re the one that doesn’t belong.”

“ _Inuyasha_.” It was Miroku this time, and if he’d been disapproving before, he was downright scathing with it now.

“It’s fine,” she said grimly. She was really tired of how they seemed to mince about her like she was going break if they said the wrong thing. “He has the right to ask. You all do.”

With gentleness that defied her tone, she took Kagome’s hands and carefully loosened them from her shirt. Kagome was staring at her again, lower lip trembling and Sango felt a pang of deep regret. Why? When had she allowed herself to feel this way at all, when she’d known from the start that this was only a temporary means to an end?

She squeezed Kagome’s hands, then dropped them and carefully stepped away to look straight at Inuyasha.

“I am here because I took a risk, same as you. I don’t trust _you_ , but I can trust your commitment to doing what needs to be done, because we all want to destroy Naraku in the end. I thought the _entire point_ of any of this was that it will be achieved faster if we work together.”

He sneered but said nothing, which was good because she wasn’t finished.

“But from what I saw today, I can tell you that this—“ she gestured at all of them “—isn’t going to work. _I_ will not work with someone who lets his own reckless power get to his head and endangers us all. I don’t now what your problem is today, but you’ve been itching to fight since I saw you this morning, and whatever power trip you’re on could have gotten all of us killed.”

Then, to everyone’s surprise, she pointed a finger at the monk. Her voice was cold. “Did you even notice? Miroku was about to engage the demon when you decided to toss around your wind scar. If he hadn’t been able to stop himself, you would have ripped him apart in the process.”

Inuyasha whipped to look at Miroku again, but the monk had finally lowered his staff and put a hand to his temple. The briefest hints of frustration escaped his normally rigid control of his emotions, but she only saw it because she was looking really hard.

“Sango, I can speak for myself,” he said tiredly.

“Except you don’t,” she retorted. “You never do. And I can’t imagine that this is the first time its happened. How much time do you spend making sure Inuyasha doesn’t kill you? Because its an absolute _waste_.”

Unlike the others, she couldn’t read the monk at all. When his blue eyes met hers, there was only a wall, and behind it a churning calculation. He had the look of someone who was invested in the long term, and her respect for him rose. But she wasn’t going to play his game, whatever it was. She didn’t have the time.

“Something has to change,” she said, turning back to Inuyasha who was glaring balefully at her now. “You don’t need me to fight? Fine. There are plenty of other things that I can do to contribute. I work better alone. With Kirara, I can find out rumors, scout out leads, tie up loose ends. But I need to know that I can rely on you long enough for me to do my job.”

She paused, then with a louder voice. “ _Can_ I?”

Inuyasha flexed his claws. He cast his gaze about, a maelstrom of emotions filling his face that were too messy to define but were all permutations of anger. Finally, he spat on the ground.

“Do whatever the fuck you want,” he said, and then his figure blurred and disappeared. Alarmed, Sango whirled around behind her to see him pick up Tetsusaiga where he had dropped it, dusting off its sheath and thrusting it into his belt. Then, without looking at her, he blurred again and the trees in the distance rustled.

Sango felt a chill run down her spine. She had never seen him move so fast. How was that even _fair_?

“Sango?”

She tore her gaze from the tree line to look at Kagome. The girl was biting her lip.

“You’re not—you’re not leaving are you?”

She threw a look at Miroku but he was only studying her contemplatively. Lot of help he was. Sango forced the resignation out of her face and turned back to the girl with a reassuring smile.

“I’m not leaving,” she said, but then raised a hand when Kagome opened her mouth. “I’m not leaving, but it might not be best that I stay.” She exhaled slowly, rolling the bitterness in her next words in her mouth before she grudgingly added, “It’s true what he said, you know. I don’t really fit here, at least not in the way I’ve been trying. I’m a good fighter but today it was made even more clear to me that you don’t really need that. What you need is someone who can search in parallel with you, who can chase the leads that you won’t see. I can do that. I was born to do that.”

“But is this what you want?” Trust Kagome to ask the hard questions.

Sango debated telling the lie because it was easier, but she didn’t because Kagome deserved more than that. “Honestly? It is.”

She felt a pang at the hurt that flashed through Kagome’s eyes. Damn. She almost ran her hand through her hair, but stopped when she remembered her split knuckles, then the cut on her cheek. They were starting to burn fiercely. “We can discuss the details later, but I think it might be best if I periodically leave the group to do investigations. There is too much land to travel on foot at a reasonable pace. With Kirara, I am the best candidate to pick up the slack.” She turned and gave Kagome a small smile. “I would only ever be a short flight away.”

Kagome startled her by hugging her, her fingers gripping her back tightly. It was warm, the soft hair gentle against her cheek, and before she thought better of it she returned the embrace.

For a moment Sango closed her eyes and pretended. That this was a different time and a different world and they had met under different circumstances. Under those circumstances, she would have called her a close friend. But just thinking about ‘what if’s inevitably lead her to think about all the other regrets in her life, and then she wished she was hugging someone else, the only one she had ever really hugged this tight, and she had to draw away, trying to stifle the lump in her throat.

She heard Miroku walk towards her and put a hand on her shoulder. When she looked up, he was smiling warmly—and even with all those layers of walls, she knew it was genuine.

“You maybe right,” he was saying. “But let’s not worry about that for now. Kagome, do you think you could grab your first aid kit? Sango looks like she’s going to need it.”

Flushing the girl muttered apologies and dashed away. They both stared after her in silence.

“It needed to be done,” she said finally, feeling his curiosity like a physical sensation.

“I know.” He dropped his hand but didn’t move away. “I’m only sorry you had to be the one to do it.”

She snorted. “Why _not_ me? It doesn’t matter whether he likes me or not.”

He looked at her, and those calculating eyes were as blue as the bottomless sky. “I feel obligated to warn you,” he said solemnly. “You made a reckless gamble today. Inuyasha is not like other humans. He does not know how far to take something, doesn’t know when or even _how_ to stop, and he doesn’t have compunction about killing people that piss him off. If you are not careful, you will make him an enemy. And I assure, you will regret it.”

It wasn’t a threat. Just pure, unbiased observation. She didn’t say anything for a long moment and with a friendly clap to the shoulder, he moved to follow Kagome.

“Inuyasha’s not my enemy,” she called out. It was even true—at least, he wasn’t her enemy anymore. She wouldn’t ever forget those feverish nights, her thoughts twisted around him like a sickness, the shard in her back pulsing and keeping death at arms reach. But that was the past. “He’s not my friend either. I don’t need a friend like that.”

“And that,” Miroku called over his shoulder, “is where we will have to agree to disagree. Because I for one think he will be a powerful friend to have one day.”

He left her to puzzle over that one.


	7. Day 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sango dreams.

**Day 33**

Sango wiped the sweat from her brow, squinting into the dense brush.A flash of pain across her check made her wince. Her fingers flittered over the grimy bandage on her face but she eventually forced her hand down to rest on Kirara's head where it pressed against her hip. Touching the bandage only seemed to worsen the ache in the deep, thin cut Inuyasha had given her.

Subconsciously, Sango flexed her hand against the warm fur, feeling the skin over her knuckles pull taut. The split on her knuckles was healing nicely in comparison, and she wished she’d used Kagome’s salve more equally between her injuries. She’d gone the practical route, rationalizing she needed her hand more than her face, but the latter injury had been deeper than she bargained for and she could tell now it was going to scar—a thin line peeling from cheekbone to ear.

Sango grimaced. She had her fair share of scars--her back alone had become a webbed nightmare that she was thankful she couldn’t look at—but she'd never scarred on her face. It was silly, but she felt oddly self conscious about it. And she'd just been lecturing Inuyasha about taking care of himself not days ago, too.

Kirara nudged her hand, forcing Sango to look down. The youkai was laying down in her large form and stretched out with her head on her paws such that she took up the entire branch they were on, but not a leaf rustled or a branch squeaked. Her red slitted eyes blinked slowly at her with intelligence and Sango felt the reprimand for fidgeting. Amused, she rubbed a finger along the rim of a large ear and cracked a smile when Kirara’s eyes half lidded in pleasure.

The smile faded from her face when she turned her attention back to the clearing ahead. They’d been waiting here, carefully downwind, for several hours. She was already exhausted and the pull to give up for the day was strong but she resisted. It was getting close to sunset and if anything happened it would be soon.

A few days ago, she’d heard a rumor of a strange bipedal youkai wandering the northern mountains, looting on caravans. While these caravans were typically razed they were never decimated that they couldn’t continue limping in to the nearest village. Oddly, they always came in with a random portion of their wares missing: food stores, a crate of linens, clay pottery, once a barrel of distilled alcohols. It didn’t seem like there was any forethought in what was taken, but this abnormal behavior pricked her instincts.

Sango was jostled out of her thoughts when Kirara’s ears moved under her hand, straightening. She flashed a glance to her companion to see those red eyes trained unerringly ahead. Sango felt a flash of adrenaline, lifting her hand away to press steadily into the tree trunk on her right.

It didn’t take long; eventually she too could hear the pound of slow heavy foot steps. The excitement dwindled into apprehension. It sounded— _big_.

Her suspicious were confirmed when in the distance to the east she spotted birds take flight into the sky. Sango did a quick calculation, then fisted a hand quietly in Kirara’s neck. They were far enough away that youkai’s trajectory should not take it past their perch, but if the creature deviated they would have to break for it. They could _not_ engage, not if they wanted to figure out what it was doing—at least she knew this, but the thought left a sour taste in Sango’s mouth. She focused reassuringly on the weight of Hiraikotsu on her back for just a moment. It was strapped tightly to her back, wrapped in cloth to muffle noise. The state of it wasn’t ideal—the weapon would be heavier and slippery when thrown—but it was better than leaving it behind.

The creature lumbered into view and she swallowed.

It was almost three meters tall, with a dark purple skin that gleamed with sharp spikes in the sunlight. It stood on short, thick legs with three black clawed toes, but its bulging arms hung nearly to its knees, and its three—no, four fingered hands were the size of her head. It’s own head had a strange combination of reptilian and mammalian features with yellow eyes and slitted nostrils but a human like jaw, small ears and a shock of pale lavender hair. Everything was slightly off, like the features had been rearranged incompletely, and it made the hairs on her neck stand on end.

_Asymmetry_ , Sango thought grimly. She remembered her old Taijya instructor lecturing to her class of initiates, standing ramrod straight with his hands behind his back and only the white at his temples giving any indication of age. _Look for symmetries_ , he had said. Symmetry was a hallmark of natural growth. Asymmetry, on the other hand, was the hall mark of unnatural growth, intent, trial and error. A youkai with asymmetric properties must always be taken out as quickly as possible, because it meant it was undergoing a _change_. An evolution.

Against every screaming instinct, Sango stood and watched as the youkai lumbered about. It’s unfocused gaze seemed to dart back and forth between the trees, but it gave off the air of being confused. Twice it tripped and nearly fell, but always caught itself with a dizzying display of speed. There was something clutched in its hand that it pressed protectively to its chest but Sango couldn’t see it with out getting closer and she had a feeling that its current clumsiness would give way to unerring predetorial grace if she got within hearing distance.

Sango gripped Hiraikotsu’s strap, tight enough until her knuckles pinched. She could probably take it out with Hiraikotsu. But the trees around here were problematic; a long, wide throw would be heard toppling trees long before it reached the youkai. A vertical throw might do the trick if she had a clear path, but it would be difficult. Too little power and Hiraikotsu would not have the proper spin to shear through what looked like a touch, scaly hide. Too much power and it would miss its target, biting into the earth too short. She’d need to throw perfect; the kind of throw she’d made in her prime, when her back wasn’t a scabby, stiff mess that no longer moved the way it once had.

Sango flexed her back, feeling resistance and an odd thickness, and it brought a wash of slow simmering anger. She knew without having to try that she could not make the throw—and even if she started to recondition the muscles of her back, she might never be able to throw with the precision she once had. The thought was so bitter that she had to close her eyes briefly against it. But it was true. She wouldn’t shy away from the truth. Her, the strongest taijya, the last taijya, brought low by the limits of her own flesh.

Kirara nudged her hand. When she looked down, those red eyes were compassionate in a way that made Sango’s heart ache with thankfulness. Amid all her loss, Kirara was still there, patient and accepting. Sango couldn’t think of where she would be if she had lost Kirara too.

With something a shade too close to helplessness, the taijya and the cat youkai watched the creature continue its bumbling path into the forest and disappear.

That night, she dreamed something new for the first time.

_He wanted to have tea. She’d thought it would be like the few other times he had visited her, informal. It still was informal, but it had all the trappings of a damn_ ceremony.

_Lord Kagawaki sat on his knees with a patient grace as the servants brought in a low table. Sango, leaning against one of the maids, watched with growing trepidation as a brazier was placed at the head of it, then a tea pot set to steam. It was a beautifully crafted earthenware pot, delicate and likely as fragile as rice paper, and Sango trembled at the thought of being within a meter of it._

_Soon enough, everything had been placed and the maid was slowly lowering her to her knees at the table. Even though she had been freshly changed, she felt every bead of sweat on her torso and arms, every chaffing pass of the robe on the skin of her shoulders. She was still reeling from her most recent changing. She wanted to curl up in a ball in a dark corner and close her eyes, not kneel formally in front of the most powerful person in all of the land, a person that she owed her_ life _to. But he was watching her with those eyes the color of deep violet and a meticulously crafted expression of boredom, and she’d sooner shove her hand in a stove fire than admit to his face that she couldn’t sit through a cup of tea._

_So she sat stiffly, shoulders back, her face a mask of serenity as she gave a perfect bow over her knees and the flames of pain in her body licked and flickered._

_“Rise, please,” he said. He had a beautiful voice, silk against her ears. “Do not tax yourself more than necessary on my account.”_

_Sango suppressed a flash of annoyance. Then why where they having tea?_

_The pain must have made her more transparent than she thought. On raising her head, she caught a flash of amusement on his face, but he hid it so smoothly in a gesture to one of the servants that she started to doubt herself. His expression was back to perfunctory curiosity and boredom and she felt a flash of shame, then of defiance. Maybe he expected her to be an uncouth barbarian, a common accusation against the Taijya._

_She had her pride, damn it._

_“Thank you, my lord,” she murmured, lowering her eyes demurely in an effort to defy all stereotypes. However, when the servant reached for the kettle and the Lord waved him off, Sango had to fight not to stare. He couldn’t be serious. He, the lord of the entire region, was not planning on serving her tea._

_When he reached for the tea pot, she found herself saying, “Please, Lord, if you would do me the honor.”_

_He stilled, then sat back, studying her. She felt a flash of triumph at the new interest in his expression, even as her body screamed at her for the pointless exertion. When he gestured gracefully, she bowed, carefully repositioned herself closer to the kettle and took a small breath._

_She folded her focus over and over until it was only her, the prince and the tea pot. When she picked it up, the tea pot felt cool and smooth under her fingers. When she began to pour, it was in a smooth stream without a single tremble. The prince watched her, an eyebrow raising slowly._

_“A capable woman,” he said, surprising her. She had expected him to ignore her obvious efforts, like she imagined a normal prince would do. She said nothing, moving to pour the second cup._

_“Not at all, my lord,” she said when she had finished. “This is only a small thing I can do, to repay your kindness.”_

_He wrapped his hands around his cup and lifted it with a delicateness that made her almost envious. He had beautiful hands, she noticed. Smooth skin with long fingers and carefully trimmed nails. She tried not to look at her own calloused, scarred hands as she lifted her own cup up in near perfect mimicry._

_“It is not a kindness when it was the fault of my father—or the demon impersonating my father—that got you injured in the first place,” he said carefully, watching her._

_Sango lips thinned slightly at the memories his words brought, but she squashed them down for another time. She shook her head._

_“But you are nurturing me back to health. I can not repay such a debt.”_

_He contemplated that a moment. Something new came into his eyes then, an unfamiliar sight in the stoic man he usually seemed to be. His eyes flickered over her and she felt suddenly self-conscious. “That remains to be seen,” he said, almost to himself. His voice sounded…odd._

_When she looked at him, brows drawn together in question, he shook his head and continued, “Speaking of health, exactly how are your injuries coming along?”_

_It was her turn to contemplate her answer. It was hard to sound at ease with the increased pounding in her head. “Well enough, my lord.”_

_Suddenly, his voice was sharp. “But not so well enough that you should be receiving visitors, even a lord?”_

_Her hand slipped, a splash of tea blooming on the table next to her cup. She paused, staring at it, feeling his gaze like a burn on her face, before setting the cup on the table. She moved to put her hands in her lap, and just in time—she could no longer suppress the trembling._

_“You are bleeding again,” he told her almost kindly and she didn’t have to look to know it was true._

_She looked at him then, mouth open to object, and felt her breath catch at the crooked smile he was giving her. It changed his face entirely, turning the lord into a young man, and she became suddenly aware of the angles of his face and the curve of his lips against his teeth. They were alone in this vast room and yet it was suddenly too small. Her mouth closed with a click._

_“Forgive my indulgence,” he said quietly, that new light back and smoldering his eyes into twilight. “We have so few guests here. I am afraid I yearned more for beautiful company than was wise, and now you are in pain.”_

_Sango swallowed. This wasn’t the lord of the land, and this wasn’t the prince of the castle. The question was, who was it?_

_When she didn’t say anything, the smile slipped from his face to be replaced with something solemn and accepting. This time, she saw the way it smoothed over his expression, like a well kept mask._

_“Shall I leave?” he asked, and she had the distinct feeling she was being tested. If only she knew what she was being tested_ for _._

_It didn’t matter though; she had her duty and her pride, and weakness never factored into either._

_“Please stay, my lord,” she said quietly, twisting her fingers into her robe. “Let us at least finish our tea.”_

_She watched as slowly, Kagawaki’s mask frayed at the edges. Then, like dawn under a lavender sky, that crooked smile crept across his mouth and she felt heat creep into her chest and neck._

_“As my lady wishes,” he murmured, and they sipped their tea in silence, save for the pounding of her heart._

Sango woke suddenly in the dark and she stared wide eyed until the sky was lavender and gold with a new day.

**Day 35**

"Hey, are you doing okay?" Kagome frowned.

Sango looked up slowly, chopsticks poised in her mouth. She had been staring numbly at a crack on the floor near the table leg and thinking it looked like a mushroom. Her head felt like it was stuffed with down feathers. She flushed a little when Miroku looked up from his cup of tea curiously.

"I'm sorry?" she asked.

Kagome shrugged. "I don't know. I thought you look really tired."

Sango swallowed carefully, then lowered her hands to the table. Even that motion felt heavy. Tired did not describe what state she was in, but she couldn’t say that. If she did she’d have to explain, and how did one go about explaining that she wasn’t sleeping because she was avoiding her dreams?

"A little," she admitted, poking her bowl of rice. She knew she needed to eat, keep up her strength. She forced another large swallow and reached for the tea. Hopefully the aroma would wake her and keep her from staring at cracks in the floor.

“Anything interesting we need to know?” Miroku asked over his own cup. She was distracted momentarily by the manner he held his cup, found herself mentally comparing to another man. When she realized what she was doing, she slowly put her own cup down and rubbed her forehead. 

Dreams be damned, she was getting sleep tonight.

The two traded information. They both confirmed the main rumors regarding youkai in possession of shikon jewel shards, but there were a few that Miroku had not heard. Still, any information about the shikon shards did little more than suggest a direction to wander in. Kagome could sense all the shards on the periphery of her inner sight but had difficulty deciphering numbers at a great distance. A rumor was easily identified as real or fake once they had travelled close enough for Kagome to confirm.

It also seemed that the others had dropped their questions regarding the local lord, so Sango shared what little she had discovered. When she mentioned the abnormal youkai, Miroku frowned slightly.

“That is troublesome,” he said, eyes staring with inner contemplation at the table. “And there was no jewel shard?”

Sango shook her head. “I cannot sense the shards the way Kagome can, but I know, just as you do, when a jewel shard is involved.” She traced her empty bowl of rice with a finger. “I think the lack of a shard makes it more concerning to me,” she added.

Miroku nodded. “Any idea of the source?”

Kagome’s head popped up at that, eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Miroku turned to her, saving Sango from explaining. “Unlike humans, youkai have the ability to evolve themselves. But to do so, they must consume vast quantities of life force.” He nodded towards the chain around the girl’s neck. “We don’t see this as much now a days, as a youkai can transform quite rapidly with just a single shard of the jewel. But before the jewel had been broken, it usually took much longer.” His expression turned troubled. “And usually many things had to die before such a state could be observed.”

Kagome bit her thumb, thinking through that a moment. “So then, we don’t know where that youkai is getting his energy,” she said.

Sango nodded. “It cannot be from the attacks on the caravans. Those are too small in scale.” A chill ran down her spine. “There must be a slaughter somewhere so devastating that no one survived to send out news.”

Miroku was looking at her closely. “You did the right thing, waiting,” he said suddenly. “If you killed it, there is no guarantee that something else wouldn’t just take its place. We need to find the source, not the messenger.”

“I can only hope,” she said quietly, and after her words there was silence for a time.

There was a rustle as Shippou, yawning, moved away from the corner he and a small Kirara had curled up in. The cat opened one eye, then closed it again, settling down. Sango watched with amusement as the fox stumbled towards them and climbed onto Kagome’s shoulder.

“Hi Sango,” Shippou said, a little shyly, those bright green eyes blinking sleepily at her.

Sango replied kindly. Kirara’s fondness of the small fox lately had sealed the deal, so to speak, of Sango’s affection for the little guy. Kirara was never wrong about people.

“Are you going to stay with us today?” he asked.

Sango shook her head. “Unfortunately no. In fact, I should probably go now,” she said, standing. “I want to make it to the next village before sun down and it’ll be a long flight.”

At that, Kirara opened both her eyes and looked at her, but Sango waved her down. She needed to get the packs first, and Kirara could use the rest. At least one of them should capitalize on it. “Til next week?”

She felt a little pang of loss when Kagome smiled at her warmly, and Miroku gave a wave of farewell. This was how things were going to be from now on. That was fine, but being alone for so long had made her miss their camaraderie deeply. Before she could let that emotion slip from her face, she gave a quick nod and turned quickly to the door.

When she had closed the sliding door, she turned and ran straight into Inuyasha.

Her nose bumped into the chest of his haori and immediately, clawed hands came up to steady her. She inhaled, smelling earth and pine needles and that something that was him, dark and clean—and she must be damned tired, because it wasn’t unpleasant in the least. She blinked up at him to find his eyes on her face, and then his hands suddenly fell away and he took a step back.

“Hello,” she said, unsure. She hadn’t seen him all day. In fact, she hadn’t seen him since she’d hurt her hand on his face.

He ignored her greeting. His eyes were fixed on the bandage on her cheek, and under his scrutiny, she found herself raising shaky fingers to touch it. It ached at the light touch, and she was too tired to hide the wince.

At her movement, he went still. His face was utterly blank and it made her nervous. She waited for him to say something but instead he reached a clawed hand forward and for a crazy moment she thought he was going to touch her. Her breath stopped.

There was only a slight flicker of his eyes at the response, from her face to her mouth. But then his gaze moved over her head and his arm continued its motion over her shoulder to slide open the door behind her with a smooth snap.

She didn’t move but she didn’t have to. He side stepped around her, making sure not to touch her, then closed the door behind him. A moment later, she could hear the murmuring of voices, and then the low sound of his response.

Sango stood there unbelieving for a long time, then her jaw clenched and she closed her eyes.

She wanted to spin right around. She wanted to lift the door off its track and bring it down hard on his head. She didn’t move until she knew she’d controlled herself, but it was still a long moment until she finally permitted herself to move stiffly down the hall to the exit. He wanted to play that way? That was fine with her.

A friend, huh? She scoffed. She didn’t need him. She didn’t need _that_.

She dozed on Kirara’s back, wind in her hair and the fur soft against her cheek. She hoped that her exhaustion would drop her right into dreamless sleep.

_Sango was in the process of reaching for the wooden beam of the far wall to pull herself up when the door slid open with a muffled noise and Lord Kagowaki was staring at her._

_She froze, feeling like a child caught red handed stealing food from the kitchen, and slowly peeked up at him. She watched with mortification as a slow smile broke across his face, and she turned quickly away to stare at the wall._

_“This isn’t what it looks like,” she said quickly, then cursed at her own lie. It was exactly what it looked like._

_“Are you trying to escape, my dear?” he said, and the low teasing in his voice was new and odd and made the heat rise up her neck._

_“Your maids, maybe,” she retorted to the wall. Gods, if she heard another lecture on taking proper care of her injuries she was going to climb_ up _the wall. “I am perfectly capable of leaving this room on my own.”_

_“Of course you are,” he said indulgently, making her almost turn around to glare at him. That is, until he stepped in and the the shoji screen closed behind him. It might as well have been slammed by the way it set her heart racing. If she’d wanted to get out of the room before, she_ really _wanted to get out of the room now. Preferably with him still in it._

_She heard him as he moved towards her and she tamped down on her flight instinct. She was not a deer being stalked by a predator. When he crouched behind her, a hands breath of distance between them that was just within the levels of normal decorum, she could still feel the wall of his warmth radiating along her back._

_“Can I be of any assistance?” he said lowly, and she was entirely convinced now this was another of his games. Beneath the stoic exterior of the lord was a bored man that spent far too much time alone with the servants. That part of him seemed to come out more and more when he was around her. She almost preferred the lord; it made things so much simpler._

_“That would defeat the purpose, my lord,” she said pointedly, and was startled at his laugh. Rich and smooth, it rolled over her like a gently breeze._

_“You are right,” he said, eyes gleaming. “But I must confess, it will be quiet boring for me to watch you struggle towards the door for the next bell. I’d much rather enjoy the sun.” And then, teasingly, “I won’t even tell the maids.”_

_The look she shot him was so full of hope that he covered a hand to his mouth to hide his grin. She hated when he looked at her like that, like a pet that he needed to indulge, and he knew it. He was trying to be on his best behavior, which of course only made her madder._

_She sniffed at the wall. “All right. But only because I’ve been longing for the sun too.” She waited for him to help her up._

_Nothing happened. She blinked, cautiously looking back at him, to find him studying her with a more serious expression. What was he waiting for?_

_When her eyes met hers, he smiled slightly, as if that was exactly what he’d been waiting for. Then he took a half step forward, blocking out the rest of the room, and her adrenaline spiked high as his hands reached for her._

_This was a terrible idea._

_She felt his hands at her waist at first, the lightest of touches. They were so large, and she felt suddenly the difference in their size in a way she hadn’t before. When they slid slowly around her waist, she stopped breathing and she could almost feel his smile against the back of her head._

_She thought he might try to carry her, and if he tried she didn’t know what she would do—probably be sentenced to death for what she would do. But he didn’t; he lifted her with a considerable strength that made her eyebrows lower in confusion—this, a sick man?—and allowed her time to balance her weight on her feet. When she was steady, she nodded and he carefully maneuvered one of her arms over the breadth of his shoulders. His other arm curled around her waist and if it was a tad too tight, a shade too possessive, she tried not to acknowledge it._

_He was a lord. Why would he have interest in her? This was just another of his games._

_They made slow but steady progress across the room, and soon they were out and making their way to the garden. When the first hint of a breeze caressed her face, she gave a light sigh. She was looking forward to hearing the song birds. Lord Kagawaki had been teaching her some of their names._

_She expected them to stop along the closest perimeter of the garden, but when she paused he merely shook his head and pulled her forward. They continued like that, slowly moving around the space, her confusion only mounting as the flowers grew fewer, the trees thinning. They were approaching the back of the garden and she realized suddenly they were moving somewhere very specific._

_When she shot him a startled look he merely shrugged. “This is where you wanted to go first, is it not? There will still be plenty of sun afterwards.”_

_Her heart in her throat, she only nodded._

_Soon enough, they were standing in front of the graves—_ the graves of her family _. Surprisingly it wasn’t at all that hard to let herself quietly grieve in front of him. Perhaps because he gave her privacy by looking away onto the other parts of the garden and she could hide herself in the curtain of her hair._

_She didn’t cry, just stared overwhelmed at the graves, feeling parts of her flake away at the rawness of her feelings. She was nothing but a jagged wound and she knew with certainty that though she may scar, she would never heal._

_“I’m sorry for what happened to you,” he said suddenly, breaking her revere. His profile was full of quiet compassion and of everything, his jokes, his teasing, his games, it was this that made her want to touch him, any part of him, his arm or the littlest of his fingers, just to feel something human and alive under her skin._

_“Thank you, my lord,” she said, unable to say more, afraid that her longing might bleed out of her._

_She felt his grip on waist tighten, and then he turned and was looking down at her, his attention wide and infinite. “But I am not sorry that it brought you here.”_

_Nervously, almost fearfully, she looked up at him. He wasn’t smiling. But his look were dark, warm, full of unsaid promises and she had to look away for fear she might actually read them._

_“Forgive my indulgence,” he murmured, and with his free hand reached out, a finger touching the tips of her long hair._

_She just didn’t understand._

Sango opened her eyes to find them blurry and hot. The sight of the sun setting in jagged streaks of red and the wind against her face was almost soothing. She buried her face into Kirara’s neck, feeling the cat give a soft croon in her chest, and resisted giving into the tears.

Why was she remembering this now? Worse, what more was there to remember?

“Damn it,” she whispered. “Damn it.”

  


  



	8. Day 39

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The older chapter 8 has been changed and officially split into two chapters. If you’d read the fic before, start with chapter 8, as it has almost entirely new content now. Chapter 9 will have some familiar scenes. This fic will now end at around 18 chapters, give or take. 
> 
> Also, I didn't realize deleting chapters also deleted comments. :( I'm so sorry, to those who commented on chapter 8. I really appreciate every comment and its what kept me working on this fic even after so many years have passed.

**Chapter 8: Day 39**

The eyes that suddenly turned on her were bright yellow and slitted. “ _Taijya_ ,” the hiss was venomous, followed by the sound of an ominous creak. 

“Sango!” Miroku yelled. He didn’t need to say more; she threw herself and Hiraikotsu to the left. She felt the shadow of the boulder thrown at her as a momentarily cool relief against the blazing sun before it tumbled and skidded with an earth shattering crunch against a copse of trees. She didn’t want to know how close it had come to skinning her head.

She hit the ground, rolling to her knees as Hiraikotsu thumped heavily beside her. Feeling exposed, she leaned over and jerked it up as a shield between her and her enemy just as Kirara landed beside her, snarling. A warning whistle filled the air. The two exchanged a quick look, then both vaulted in opposite directions as another boulder smashed the ground where they had stood. 

She ran, sliding Hiraikotsu onto her back, then made a leap for a high branch. As she swung up into a nearby tree branch, Hiraikotsu’s strap digging sharply along her collarbone, she allowed herself to breathe in the moment; adrenaline pumping heady in her arteries, sweat speckled along her body, every bruise and scrape buzzing faintly in the tantalizing sting of being alive.

She jumped from tree branch to tree branch, hearing more than seeing the sound of the youkai in hot pursuit as it thundered in the brush below. That was interesting; she hadn’t done much other than toss a smoke bomb at it from afar, and yet despite Inuyasha’s incessant hacking at it the creature had turned its focus on her. 

She couldn’t stop her teeth splitting into a fierce parody of a smile. She’d been doing nothing but hunt rumors and brood restlessly for days before Miroku had called her in to help deal with a local youkai problem. She’d come _flying_.  

Tree cover was as much a disadvantage for her as for the youkai, so she began to increase her elevation. When she landed on a thick, sturdy branch close to the top, she coiled the muscles in her thighs and leapt with both feet into the air, clearing the tree tops. 

She took in the landscape in one breathless moment; green, expanding like an endless ocean to the roots of the blue mountains in the distance. With her arms spread, the wind twisting her hair in her face, and the world in sudden quiet suspension, she felt full and free and _herself_.

She wanted to laugh in the face of the open, blue sky. 

It had always been like this for Sango. On the day to day, even with other taijya, she had been strict, direct. She had never felt comfortable, wading through the murky landscape of societal expectations and complex social relationships, brandishing formality like a weapon against the lying smiles and the half truths of the enemies that sometimes one had to pretend where allies or friends.

But a battlefield was different. The ultimate cleanser. To struggle with death was to raze all delusions and facades, revealing only who one really was, what one was really made of. And for Sango, it became very simple. There were the winners and there were the rest. Let the elders determine what causes were just and what the battles were actually for— only the victors decided what was right and wrong in the end.

Sango had a duty to win. And she had always been diligent in her duty.

She caught a flash of silver in her periphery, and looked. There was Inuyasha, having also jumped into the air, now suspended in the moment with her. She couldn’t decide what expression he was wearing: distrustful, contemplative, curious. 

The sight of him stirred an old competitive fire inside her, a reckless impulse that she seized with both hands. She felt wonderful and light in a way she hadn’t in a long time.

“This one’s mine,” she called out, grinning, and he only looked surprised. Maybe because she had never smiled at him before or because she hadn’t actually spoken to him in days. But she didn’t wait for his response. She had reached the zenith of her jump and was now hurtling towards the tree tops. The sound of the youkai roared behind her. 

She flexed her back muscles. Could she do it? 

Yes.

She pulled Hiraikotsu in a sinuous twist off her back as she fell through gaps in the upper layer of the trees. Branches flashed by her, tugging her clothes and hair, one scratching against her bandaged cheek, and then the youkai was below her, having caught up to her. It was already reaching towards her, yellow eyes gleaming, its fanged mouth open in a roar. 

She fixed her hands on the straps of one end of her weapon and raised both arms. She locked eyes with the creature, but its ferocity was completely eclipsed by the surety that filled her bones. 

She swung with her entire body in a vertical slash. 

Hiraikotsu cut through the air like a blade. There was a thunk and hiss and then she was falling _through_ its body, warm, hot liquid spraying in her face. She felt Hiraikotsu lodge somewhere—likely the rib cage—and instinctively let go, kicking at the chest of the creature with both feet. Her kick sent her and the body shooting in opposite directions. She flipped backwards once, then landed on her feet facing forward, boots skidding in the dust and a hand on her blade. 

She needn’t have bothered. She’d severed the creature half down to the chest. She straightened, watching as its body swayed then fell with a thud.

Her back stung fiercely, but it had not ripped. She had _done_ it. 

She was still breathing heavily, when Inuyasha landed a few meters from her. She turned to look at him, light-headed with a quiet savage joy. She knew it was the battle high, the adrenaline rush. Yet she still couldn’t stop the confident, challenging look she threw at him. 

She saw him suck in a breath. His eyes travelled her slowly from feet to hips to heaving chest, taking in her stance, her hand on her hilt, the blood that steamed a little against her skin. When his eyes met hers, almost unwilling, she found herself fascinated by the way his pupils were slightly dilated, his jaw clenching. Like he was struggling with himself. To not respond to her challenge. To mirror back to her whatever was in her eyes. 

“Told you,” she panted, just to see his eyes practically _smolder_ behind those silver lashes before he pointedly turned away from her to wait for their companions.

**Day 40**

“I’m telling you,” Inuyasha growled. “That thing was after her.”

Miroku sighed over his tea cup. “Inuyasha,” he began patiently as beside him Kagome rolled her eyes, “your jealousy is showing.”

“I’m not _jealous_ ,” he snapped back. “Kagome was just as far back as she was. She has a bottle of _jewel shards_. The thing didn’t even look at her, even when she scorched its back with arrows. It wanted Sango.” His eyes narrowed on her, like she was somehow responsible. 

Sango found herself nodding slowly. “I think so too.”

He blinked at her. Actually, all of them blinked at her. Shippou leaned towards Kagome, eyes wide and voice lowered in a whisper.

“Did they just…agree on something?”

Sango ignored him. Inuyasha did not. With a furious scowl, he reached over the table to slap the kid over the head, but Shippou scampered away with a squeak then stuck his tongue out at the hanyou. 

“I’m curious as to why you think so, Sango,” Miroku said seriously, though the glint in his eyes was parts curious and amused. 

Sango sipped her tea. “It recognized me as a taijya,” she said finally. “Though that may not mean much. Perhaps the reputation of the taijya has spread even to these parts.” Her smile turned sharp. 

Inuyasha, who was still having a glaring contest with Shippou, shot a look at her then. She raised an eyebrow at him in challenge. “What else could it be?”

He grunted, eyes narrowed, but remained silent. She had a sneaking suspicion he’d been about to say something that would irritate her, like “you wouldn’t understand.” She’d kick him if he said it. At least he was learning. 

At least they were _talking_. Somehow, the last battle had loosened Inuyasha’s tongue and he was no longer avoiding her like she was a disease. He still was directing most of his sentences to her through others—case in point, his comment to Miroku—but she didn’t care. She didn’t _need_ them getting along, but cooperation was nice. At least it made Kagome look less worried.

Miroku cleared his throat. “Be that as it may, the youkai is dead and we have fuller purses for it.” He patted his robe, his expression clearly pleased. “I, for one, am going to enjoy a well cooked meal and a nice futon tonight.” 

His eyes drifted to the left, where an open space was clearly used for entertainment purposes. Sometimes, the bigger inns set up musical instruments. Or had ladies dance. 

Kagome snickered knowingly. “Is that all?”

Miroku’s smile, Sango was reminded abruptly, was as deadly as his skills on the battlefield. It had been a grave mistake of the gods to make this man attractive, since he clearly knew how to wield it. When he turned that smile on Kagome, even Sango felt an echo of its effect from across the table. “And your beautiful company, of course.”

To her credit, the girl only flushed slightly, a faint color in her neck. "You’re incorrigible," she muttered, ducking her head into her lap. 

What came next was odd. Sango caught the look on Miroku’s face as he stiffened suddenly, smile fading into blankness. He was staring at the girls bowed head like he was regretting something. Then his eyes flickered up, noticing Sango’s gaze, and his lips twisted slightly and he looked away. He brought a hand to his forehead, a small discrete sigh, saying nothing. 

Well. Sango blinked, then shot a look at Inuyasha. Usually, it was the _hanyou_ , not the monk himself, that was stepping in to correct Miroku’s impulsive flirtations before they got started. Instead, she caught a strange expression on Inuyasha’s face—lowered brows, lashes half obscuring his gaze, the slightest downward twist to his mouth. She had no idea what to make of it. 

Then his gaze flicked to her and she breathed in sharply at the intensity of... _whatever_ it was, and then he was standing abruptly, muttering about checking the perimeter, and stalking out.

 _Odd,_ she thought, watching his back, then turning careful eyes back to her companions, who had descended into uneasy silence.

 

* * *

Much to the monk’s simultaneous chagrin and delight, the inn had no scheduled entertainment performances but had plenty and plenty of sake. This he took to with professional abandon. There was no cease in refills, each time a slightly more sozzled Miroku raising his glass in toast, until eventually Sango realized Miroku seemed to plan on drinking for the rest of the night. 

She and an annoyed Inuyasha where forced to drag Miroku to their room between the two of them, Kagome trailing after them, a little pink cheeked and giggly herself from a few sips before Sango had snatched the cup away from her.

Sango slipped out from under the monk’s arm as Inuyasha took over at the door’s threshold of the two men’s shared room. She watched them, wincing only a little in sympathy, as the hanyou deposited the monk none to nicely on the futon in the middle, which Miroku took with beatific drunken grace and good humor. 

After an hour later, in which Sango had washed up and soaked alone—Kagome had declined to join her—Sango found herself pulling on her boots and a training uniform, leaving the room to find a quiet spot to do some stretches. It was always easier to think—ponder the strange turn of events of the night—when she was doing something with her hands. 

Down the length of the building that Sango walked, one of the shoji doors to a room was open. The faint glow of candle light filtered out, leaching onto the wood floor. Her steps slowed as she approached, then stopped completely when she realized that it was the monk’s room. 

Worried at the sight, Sango took a silent step forward and peered inside. 

From her vantage point, she had view of the entire room and it was easy to spot the two occupants in it. Miroku was still laying on his back, eyes closed. Near his head, Kagome kneeled beside him. At this angle, Sango could only see her profile. She was humming a little, bobbing slightly to her own tune, her eyes on the ceiling. One of her hands was running gentle fingers through his hair. 

Sango hesitated. There was nothing indecent about the scene. In fact it was sweet in a way that reminded her with a sharp pang of how a mother might touch a child, a sister might comfort a brother. She saw Miroku’s eyes crack open, blinking with a certain level of confusion like he didn’t know where he was. 

Kagome darted a glance down at him, smiling a little, still humming. 

Sango saw Miroku shift. He lifted an arm that swayed a little as he fumbled for Kagome’s wrist. When his fingers finally found her skin, he sighed, a whisper Sango couldn’t hear from this distance but which made the girl suddenly still, wide-eyed. 

Then he brought her hand to him and kissed her chastely on the palm. 

Kagome jumped out of her skin, face immediately flushing, and drew her hand away. But Miroku didn’t seemed perturbed. In fact, he didn’t look like he’d realized what he’d done. He merely murmured, hand dropping on his chest, and then he closed his eyes, dozing into light sleep. 

The look on Kagome’s face, the way she clenched the hand that he had kissed, made Sango whirl away from the door sharply before she was noticed. She pressed herself to the wall, staring into the garden, heart pounding in her chest. Frustration, confusion, hurt. And the tiniest bit— _longing_. It had been a look never meant for others to see. 

Which is why it took Sango almost a minute to realize what she was seeing in front of her.

Inuyasha was standing in the garden too, bathed almost entirely in shadow. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking into the room. He didn’t look surprised. In fact he looked completely unreadable again, and yet there was something about it that reminded Sango of a kettle about to boil over. Like it wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge. 

His eyes flicked to her, a dark amber, and there rising above all the unnameable things swimming there, was a flash of anger at _her_ for being there. She tensed, a chill going down her spine.

His eyes cut away from her abruptly. He gave one last look into the room, then he _blurred_ and was gone, only a silver shadow disappearing into the tree line. 

* * *

She didn’t know why she followed him. She simply found herself vaulting off the porch and landing on her feet in a silent crouch. She left the open shoji door behind and followed the path Inuyasha took to what looked like a deer trail deep into the wood. 

It ended in a small clearing. To her surprise, Inuyasha was sitting cross-legged on the ground in the middle of it, eyes closed. He looked almost meditative, his hair rustling in the wind. One of the ears on his head flicked once in her direction, then slowly resumed its normal position. 

When he opened his eyes, his irises small against the slit pupils, the alien coldness in them made her suppress a shiver. 

" _What_ ," he bit out. 

Sango shifted her weight from leg to leg, not sure how to answer him when she didn’t know herself. Then she looked around the clearing. It was a decent enough size, and save for a few large dead branches, almost completely clear. She pulled a ribbon from the folds of her uniform, bending over to let her hair fall straight over her shoulders. She tied it high on her head in a sturdy knot, then flipped her hair back from her face. 

Inuyasha’s expression had lost some of its coldness, though it was still guarded. Mostly, he looked mystified by her response. 

She glanced at him, then walked over to one of the large branches mouldering under a pile of leaves. She grasped the base of it, tugging it up to uncover brown moist earth and a few worms. With a grunt she tossed it high in the air towards the perimeter and it hit the ground with a solid thunk, the rotted wood cracking a little down the spine. 

She dusted the dirt off her hands, then threw a glance at Inuyasha. "Up for a spar?"

His eyebrows raised completely into his hairline. "What?"

She shrugged. "I was coming out her to practice some forms anyway. If you’re up for it." At his silence, she added, "You don’t have to."

He shot her an annoyed look, but he still seemed to hesitate. She let him mull it over as she moved to another large branch, which she dragged with one hand to the edge of the clearing. By the time a nice, sizable flat space had been cleared to her satisfaction, Inuyasha had stood warily to his feet. 

Sango took that as a yes. She blew through a series of stretches for her calves, thighs, arms, chest, stretching her neck out and flexing her fists. Inuyasha just watched her with interest, making her feel self conscious, but it was the height of stupidity to not to warm up her muscles before physical exertion. Maybe hanyou’s didn’t have to worry about pulling a muscle or post-work out aches, but she wasn’t going to skip out and risk doing so just because he didn’t need to. 

She dropped her arms, fingers tingling. "Okay, some ground rules."

His eyebrows ticked up. "There are no rules in fighting."

"We’re not fighting," she retorted. "We are sparring. In a spar, the point is to test each others technique, not to pummel each other into the ground." At least mostly. 

He frowned. "Whats the point in holding back?"

This was going to be harder than she thought. She sighed. "Fine. Just…try not to break me, yes?"

He looked as if that hadn’t clarified anything at all, which instantly annoyed her. Stupid youkai with their stupid inhuman strength. Everything was brute strength with them, no finesse, no art. 

"Humor me," she deadpanned, switching into a fighting stance. She started to bounce on the balls of her feet, beckoning him with a hand. 

He tensed a little at her form, eyes narrowed. He must have been remembering the last time she had used it on him, because he didn’t just charge at her, but approached slowly, ears tightly trained on her and muscles tense. 

When he got into striking distance, she moved. A quick lightning jab to the right side of his face. He blocked it easily with a raised arm. She did it again, but this time turning it to a feint and switching to her other arm. This one, he didn’t bother trying to block it. She hit him hard in the chest, although he didn’t respond more beyond a flicker of his eyes down to her hand. He looked bemused. 

She pulled back, rolling her eyes. "One for me."

He started, eyes widening. "What? That was a weak hit."

She crouched, bringing her fists to her face. "It’s not about the strengths of the hits. It’s if you can land them at all." She grinned a little. "Now you try. And please, human speeds."

He grunted. Then he settled into a crouch, face serious, and she immediately had to duck as his arm swung towards her. 

They traded blows, moving back and forth fluidly between attack and defense. He didn’t have any particular technique, but he seemed to systematically leave gaps in his defenses, maybe to draw opponents in. He let strikes through if he thought he could use them to his advantage, even if he sustained injury in the process. And he was instinctual in a way that made her almost envious, twisting his body in ways that surprised her, using his legs to kick at her just when she was starting to predict his moves. 

He was an intelligent fighter who basically fought like a youkai that could regenerate most wounds and used the ability as an advantage in a fight. As they continued trading blows, the power behind their swings incrementally increasing, she could tell he was also a quick study. He made her work for it.

But she was still better then him. And his instinct to let certain strikes through his defenses kept working to her advantage, once she’d figured out which ones he let slide. With every successful hit she landed, he started to snarl, struggling to correct himself. And with every inevitable return to his instincts, she tried not to gloat. Finally, when she snuck under his guard to land a glancing blow against his rib cage, their eyes snapped to each other, his almost seething, and she couldn’t help but grin, "Twenty two."

His eyes flashed. "This is fucking stupid," he snapped, startling her, and then he took a large stride forward and his arm flashed, going for her wrist. Sango threw herself back just in time, feeling his claws lightly graze the skin of her arm, her hair whiplashing her face. But he pursued after her immediately, fingers splayed open to grip, and she knew that if he caught her, it would be all over. 

The game changed. 

Her abrupt pull back sent her sprawling to her back and she scrambled to catch herself with her arms, drawing her legs away from his lunge. She threw a handful of foliage at him, chunks of leaves and dirt arcing between them, but it was a brief distraction at best. His eyes chased hers in the dark, molten gold, the eyes of a predator, and her heart exploded in her chest, instinct overriding common sense. 

She lashed out with all her considerable strength and kicked him hard in the knee.

He buckled immediately, figure careening to the side, but he hadn’t flinched even a moment at the pain and before she could draw back and scramble to her feet, his hand closed on her ankle like a vice grip. She grappled for purchase in the ground, throwing all her arm strength into pulling herself away, but he simply dragged her by her leg across the grass towards him with terrifyingly strength. 

Simple, complete resolution burned in his eyes. 

Miroku’s words came back to her. _He does not know how far to take something, doesn’t know when or even how to_ stop _._

Terror shot through her, then a wave of fury so intense the world frayed a little around the edges. 

"Concede," Inuyasha said above her, breathless, and she hissed at him.

She tried to kick him with her free leg. He let go of her ankle and grabbed her hip instead, dragging her under him and settling his weight onto her before she could wedge her knee between them to push. She bucked up at him in outrage, and watched as his slitted pupil spasmed, the grip on her hip flexing. 

" _Concede,"_ he said again, his voice tighter. 

"You _cheater_ ," she spat instead, grabbing at his collar to try and wrench him into a choke hold. She bucked beneath him again, and he fell to an elbow, grunting. "You filthy fucking cheater—"

He clenched his jaw at her words, a shiver working down his body. Like he was _trying_ to reign in whatever response he wanted to give. There was something odd happening at the corner of his eye, like a blood vessel had popped and was starting to bleed over. " _Sango_ ," he hissed in warning. "Stop fighting—"

"You couldn’t take that I might be better at something then you?" she seethed, so furious that she’d clearly lost her mind. "Give me a weapon, I dare you. I could _gut_ you—"

He shuddered again, then suddenly drew up from her, trying to put distance between their chests, though he still pinned her to the ground. " _Shut_ up—"

She reared up to follow him, teeth snapping. "I do not concede. I will _never_ concede to you—"

She was cut off when a hand suddenly clamped the back of her head.

" _Fine,"_ he suddenly hissed, and she only had a second to notice that his eyes were completely red at the edges before his fingers buried in the back of her hair and jerked. She gasped, as her head fell back, column of her throat entirely exposed, and then stilled when she felt the heat of his breath along her collarbone, his nose tracing the pulse point in her throat. He _breathed_ , deep, and then..

"You are pushing all my fucking buttons," he growled, so guttural that it sent heat like a shot down her spine. "I will get off you. Just _stop. Talking."_

She fell silent, panting, staring at the night sky above them. The pinpoints of his body on hers were suddenly all she could feel. His hands on her neck, the back of her hip; his leg beneath her straddled legs, grinding into the ground beneath them. The brush of his haori against the front of her shirt as he breathed hard against her neck. With each awareness of their touch came a jolt of heat down her spine, and she tried vainly to push it down, a shudder working between her shoulder blades— 

Her scent must have changed, because his breath stuttered. " _Fuck_." Then he was letting her go, breathing out as he pushed back on to his heels, and she fell to her elbows with a gasp, looking up at him. 

His eyes glowed _red_. Starbursts of color that swallowed his iris and the white viscera of his eye. All that was left were the faintest traces of white at the center and the completely blown pupils, which began to contract slightly the longer she stared. 

In the moonlight, he looked ethereal and wild. The very picture of a full-bloodied demon about to devour her. She should be afraid. Not suddenly breathless.

His jaw worked, like he wanted to say something, but language failed him. He didn’t need to say anything though.

_Go._

He didn’t move an inch, just stared at her as she scooted back from him, then scrambled to her feet. She backed away slowly, unable to put her back to him, until she reached the edge of the clearing, then whirled around and broke into a run.

She felt his eyes burning into her skin long after she had retreated to her room and shut the door.

 


	9. Day 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you skipped chapter 8, go back and read it, its new content. Also, this might be a great time to point out two things: one, please take the mature rating seriously, and two, for this fic Sango is older (18) and Inuyasha is older than 16+50 years, since he is a hanyou and doesn’t age like humans.

**Chapter 9: Day 40**

No one looked at each other at breakfast. _No one._ Except Shippou, who chomped his food happily and chattered to a sleepy Kirara, who only eyed Sango and yawned with a flash of white teeth.

The moment breakfast was over, Sango high-tailed it out of there. 

**Day 41**

It took another day and several kilometers distance later before Sango admitted to herself she may have made a mistake.

She should not have followed him. What on earth had compelled her? A misguided sense of sympathy? A desire to understand? She still didn’t know. And it didn’t matter. In that room, even if she didn’t know what any one of them exactly felt, she’d _seen_ how complicated they all were together. 

And then she’d decided to goad Inuyasha into fighting with her, driven both of them to a breaking point and—

—In that brief moment, feeling his breath on her neck and his hands in her hair as he told her to stop, she hadn’t _wanted_ to. 

She wasn’t unfamiliar with an adrenaline high. Battle lust, blood lust. She’d seen it enough in the other taijya when they escaped into town after a particularly challenging battle. But she’d been a woman and the headman’s daughter and such a thing aimed at her or committed by her had simply been impossible. 

What happened yesterday…what he did to her yesterday…

What would he have done? If his control had snapped? If she had said no? Would he have just—turned her over and—

Sango stopped in her tracks, blanched, and hid her face in a nearby tree. The very thought outraged her. And made her pulse race. There was something _wrong_ with her. 

When she finally pulled her face away from the tree, she found Kirara was looking at her dubiously. The large cat gave a tentative, curious growl. 

She didn’t have an answer. She didn’t have any damn answers. Sango pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, repressing the urge to shout. Or worse, to cry. Naraku was still out there. Her _family’s bones_ were still out there—her face twisted sharply. Clearly she was a raving lunatic, barely holding it together, and she was failing them, all of them…

When Kirara made a noise again, the moment passed. She took a deep breath. Suddenly, she was just tired. 

She didn’t need more complications. She didn’t. None of them did. All that mattered was getting to Naraku, and some post-adrenaline flight of fancy was not going to derail her from her duty. She owed her family their vengeance.

If she couldn’t do it, no one else would. 

Slowly, Sango straightened. She patted down her skirts, adjusted her weapon, and when she felt that all her stray thoughts had been slipped tidily into a closed box deep inside her, only then did she turn to Kirara. The cat was waiting expectantly.

Now that she’d cooled off, they didn’t have to walk anymore. She nodded. 

The cat dropped and Sango grabbed thick fistfuls of fur to climb on. It took a moment for Kirara to leap into the air, and then they were cresting the tree tops and sailing towards the western horizon. 

It didn’t take long for them to find what they were looking for. The canyons were a red blaring beacon ahead of the slowly receding forest, and as they approached Sango urged Kirara to fly low. They skimmed the dusty cliffs a moment, before the cat lighted on a small outcropping a few kilometers in. From there, the two made their way up a donkey path that they had been instructed to follow, climbing the spire higher and higher until eventually they reached the summit. Here, the mountain divided two large crevices in the earth and it was the cliff on the other side that they approached with wary, silent foot falls. 

At the last few meters, Sango dropped to her belly and  she shimmied like a serpent to the edge to look over. It only took her a second to spot the shock of lavender hair against the barren yellow rock.

The demon was growing.

Sango watched as the creature adjusted something on its front. It had a rope tied around its back and it was securing whatever it was holding to its chest. Even though she couldn’t make out its features, she knew that while the thing hadn’t grown taller, its shoulders hadn’t been so broad before. And when it reached out those impossibly long arms to grab the rock with its hands—Sango squinted, four or five fingers?—she felt a sense of dread at the way it swung with ease on to the ledge above, landing with an economy of motion she was sure it hadn’t been capable of before.

The creature ate up the height of the opposing cliff with sure, steady arms and too soon it had hoisted itself on the far end and was disappearing over the precipice. Sango waited for another half an hour in case it would come back, but it didn’t.

She’d need to make a choice about killing it soon. They were no closer to finding the source then they had been at the start and she had a feeling if she waited much longer, the choice would be out of her hands entirely. 

It was Kirara’s quite mewl behind her, more than anything, that announced that the demon was well and truly gone. Sango sighed and pushed to her feet, feebly attempting to wipe the thick coat of dust from her front to no avail. She had to spit a few mouthfuls of water to get the sand out of her teeth. After taking a long pull from the canteen, she stowed it away and shuffled over to the wall that Kirara was reclined against, turning and dropping beside the cat with a tired exhale. Kirara’s tail flicked at her face and she laid a hand on it, flattening it beside her, until the cat pulled it away and shifted on to her back, paws in the air and blinking red eyes at her. 

Sango narrowed her eyes. “No, you don’t,” she said sternly, though with a hint of fondness. “We’ve got more traveling to do today. We’re just resting awhile.”

The cat huffed and turned back to her other side. They lapsed into comfortable silence, Kirara dozing and Sango mentally plotting their next steps.

There were at least two nearby villages that Sango wanted to check out, perhaps a half a day’s ride from here and several hours between. She wasn’t expected to meet up with the others for at least a week, so she could take her time nosing out and sifting through the latest whispers. She’d found people were more willing to talk to her if she stuck around for a while and so she was determined to come to a decision regarding the lavender demon as soon as possible. 

She’d also take that time to sort out her priorities. It wouldn’t do to get anymore distracted than she already had. 

Satisfied with her plan, Sango leaned her head back against the wall. She closed her eyes, letting Kirara’s soft rumbles lull her into a light doze. 

**Day 43**

Sango burst into the room like a thunder storm, nearly cracking the shoji screen with her slam and startling Shippou out of whatever silly transformation he had been playing in. “What have you found?” she demanded.

Kagome had dropped her ramen cup at her entrance and spilled its contents down her front and on to the tatami mat. She was in the process of picking up the noodles, a red flush on her neck. Miroku had stalled somewhere between the half crouch she had startled him into and shifting to help Kagome with her clean up. He’d ended up doing neither, just staring at her blankly, and if she hadn’t wanted to shake him by his robes she might have felt satisfaction at startling him out of his normal poise. 

Only Inuyasha seemed unaffected, still shoveling noodles into his mouth. Sango’s eyes flicked to him, but then dismissed him almost as soon as she saw him, returning a demanding gaze to her other two companions.

Well?

“Sango?” the monk asked warily.

That was not an answer! She wanted to fling her weapon at the wall but restrained herself barely, teeth gnashing. “My apologies for startling you,” she said woodenly. “Have you found anything? Anything at all?”

Kagome and Miroku exchanged worried looks, before he answered slowly, “No. Not since we spoke two days ago.”

Two days. It was more than two days. It was nearly sixty hours since they had last spoke, surely they had found something in that time. 

Sango hissed between her teeth, closing her eyes. Clearly they weren’t taking this seriously. They would ask the wrong questions if she left it in their hands, they hadn’t even bothered to ask about the lord in weeks. She’d start with the village here, go to the chieftain’s house. He’d have to know something, she’d beat it out of him if she must—

“ _Sango_.” 

Sango looked up. Unconsciously, she stopped clenching her fists and felt a sharp wave of stinging spread through her hands and fingers. Kagome was staring at Sango and there was enough fear in her eyes that Sango turned abruptly to the wall, trying to control her sudden shortness of breath.

She heard Kagome set the spoiled ramen cup carefully on the table, but the girl didn’t move closer. Maybe because she sensed that if she did, the taijya would bolt.

Sango flicked her eyes up to distract herself and found them locking with Inuyasha’s instead. He’d stopped eating, chopsticks resting lightly on the rim of his cup, and was looking at her calmly. Like there was nothing in the fucking world that needed to be killed right now.

Sango’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

Inuyasha’s eyebrows furrowed, lips twisting in a sneer, but he said nothing.

She took a step toward him. “I said _what_.”

Kagome tried to interrupt, but then Inuyasha shot her a look and she stopped. He stood up, tossing his half empty cup carelessly on the table. That it rattled but didn’t spill made her clench her fists. 

"What happened?"

Her heart skipped. She sneered at him to cover it. "Nothing that concerns _you_."

His eyebrows furrowed. “Then what’s your fucking problem?”

“What’s my problem?” She barked a laugh, then turned her back on him, moving to the door. "I don’t have time to deal with this."

A hand closed on her wrist, vice-like. Inuyasha was growling, "Well fucking make time—"

Fear squeezed her throat. 

_He straightened, eyebrow raised, all dark and imposing. “Oh?” And then he was stalking towards her, a hand reaching out to grab her wrist._

Sango reacted on blind instinct. She grabbed the nearest thing—an empty plate on the table—and swung it at his face. 

Time slowed right before impact. She watched Inuyasha’s eyes widen slightly. There was a shout. A scream. Then she watched as the porcelain hit his jaw, splintered, then exploded into white shards. 

The sound shattered the trance. His face jerked to the left, skin shearing, cut deep. Sango froze.

Silence. Then, on his jaw, rising to the surface like the tide, blossoms of brilliant dripping red.

Sango came back to her senses with a dizzying stumble, jerking her arm, but Inuyasha’s grip still pinned her in place. He hadn’t let go. She watched with rising horror, as he slowly turned to her, blood dripping down his chin, his neck. His expression was the same. Unmoved. 

He should be angry. Why wasn’t he angry?

His hand slowly loosened, then let her hand slide between his fingers. 

“I…” she whispered, jerking her wrist tightly to her chest, then fell silent when he reached up to touch his jaw. He brushed at the blood and a chill washed over her as more blood filled to replace it. There was a sudden buzz in her ears. She shook her head. "I didn’t mean—"

“Don’t avoid the question,” Inuyasha interrupted calmly, and she flinched. He was idly flicking the blood from his fingers. When his eyes met hers, there was no anger, no resentment. Just a simple question that cornered her, struck to the heart of it. “What happened?”

She stared at him, trembling, then walked right out the door.

She just couldn’t. Couldn’t. Couldn’t—

                                              

* * *

                                                      

_His violet eyes bored through her from across the room. “You’ve been avoiding me.”_

_She didn’t look up from the futon she was carefully folding. She hoped that her hair properly obscured the thin line of her mouth, or the way she blinked one too many times at the fabric in her hands._

_“I don’t know what you mean,” she said evenly, and was proud that her voice didn’t even tremble at the lie._

_“Sango, don’t pretend to be foolish,” he said, and she shot a sharp look at him, only to hesitate at the clearly unhappy expression on his face. They stared at each other for several long seconds, but it was her who looked away first._

_She spread a hand over the futon and sat back on her heels. When she spoke, it was that same cool, detached tone. “I’ve been wasting far too much of your time, my lord. Your advisors—“_

_“I don’t give a damn about my advisors,” he cut in, crossing the room to stand near her, looking down at her beneath the waves of his dark hair. She refused—_ refused _—to look up at him. “You know that.”_

_“They are your advisors,” she tried. “They are trying to help you—“_

_“Will you even give me the satisfaction of looking at me while you lie?” he said quietly._

_Damn him._

_She pushed to her feet abruptly, feeling the sting of her back at the sharp movement. She ignored his hiss, and when he reached out a hand to her she took a careful step back, out of his reach. Despite all that, it took her far longer than she liked to work up the courage to look him in the face._

_She wished she hadn’t. He looked lost, one hand outstretched, eyes darting between hers. What he found there made him stiffen, face pained, before the mask she had grown to hate shuttered down like a slammed gate, leaving only the passive, untouchable face of the lord. She watched his hand drop slowly to his side with a pang of loss that she swiftly buried._

_“You are leaving.” His voice was flat._

_Sango lifted her chin. “My wounds are not healed.”_

_“But you will,” he continued. “You will leave as soon as you can, and you’ll never come back.”_

_She averted her eyes._

_“Is this because I kissed you?” he said quickly before she could find a suitable reply that didn’t sound so damning. “I don’t understand. Did you not want it?”_

_Her eyes snapped to his, her mouth falling open slightly. Did she not_ want _it? Did she—_

_“You are a lord,” she said woodenly, and she watched him stiffen at her words, at the words she had said to him before. Then, he hadn’t taken her seriously. He would now._

_He ran a hand through his hair. “It doesn’t matter—”_

_“It does matter!” she snapped, then bit her lip. Damn it, she would not lose it here in front of him. She clenched her fist, before forcibly lowering her voice, turning away from him. She needed_ distance _. “My apologies, my lord, I don’t know what came over me…”_

_“Sango, stop.” He grabbed her shoulders, but she resisted when he tried to turn. He blew a breath out in frustration. “Why are you doing this? I thought—“_

_Enough. Better to burn them both then to play this silly game._

_“I don’t want this,” she interrupted him coldly, making him freeze. “Whatever this is, this—dalliance, it might mean nothing to you. But I am not a_ toy _.”_

_He stared at her. Slowly his hands dropped from her shoulders._

_“Then what are you?” he said quietly. “Then what are you to me?”_

_She shot him a furious look. “Nothing!”_

_“Nothing?” he broke into a laugh, and she’d never heard that sound in his voice. The dark look he gave her was purely patronizing. “If you were nothing, I’d have bedded you by now and been done with it.”_

_Her face flamed scarlet. “Like I’d let you even_ try _.”_

_He straightened, eyebrow raised, all dark and imposing. “Oh?” And then he was stalking towards her, a hand reaching out to grab her wrist._

_She flinched back._

_He froze. They stared at each other across a few steps distance that might as well have been a chasm, his eyes filling with a growing distress and hers with tears._

_He was a lord. And she was a wounded, flightless bird nurtured in the cage of her master._

_She pulled herself together and made a bow. “If you would excuse me, my lord.” And then, with all the feeling of a coward, she hastened to the door._

_She was almost there when she felt hands on her shoulders, spinning her to press her back against the wall. Panic flashed through her, freezing her heart. Her hand groped wildly at her side, at the table leaned against the wall, and closed on a small washing bowl._

_“Sango.” He was too close, but his voice was pained. Pleading. “Please. I—“_

_Without thinking, she slammed the bowl against his face. On contact, it shattered into a hundred, biting shards._

_He hissed, hands dropping away from her and to his face as he spun away. She could only stare at his back, mouth open, half the bowl in her hand. In the back of her mind, something was shrieking. What had she done? She would be killed for what she’d done. She watched numbly as he took a shuddering breath, then turned to face her again._

_There was blood on his face. But it was his eyes, filled with something like regret and compassion and that other thing she would not name that made her throat close up._

_“An accident,” he whispered gently, then winced. When he touched his jaw lightly, something like surprise on his face when his fingers came away red, it jolted her awake. The remains of the bowl fell lifelessly from her fingers._

_Her mouth wrenched with shame. “I’m so sorry.” And before she had realized it, she was moving to him, arms out stretched._

_She reached for his face and with only the barest flicker in his eye, he let her. She prodded the cut gently, noticing that even as she did so he made no reaction, his eyes heavy on her._

_“That will scar,” she told him quietly._

_“Let it,” he said, hands reaching up to envelope hers. “Something of you to keep.”_

_Her eyes met his, startled, only to find that his eyes were that dark violet that made her want to run away and stay at the same time. She froze, unsure, when his hands smoothed down her wrists, cupping her elbows a moment. Then one hand continued to her shoulders, thumb brushing the skin of her throat. She swallowed at the touch and his mouth turned up at the corner as he settled his fingers in her hair, cupping her jaw in mimicry of what she was doing._

_“I cannot stay,” she said, her voice cracking slightly as her hands dropped to his shoulders. Because if she said it, he wouldn’t ask her to. And she didn’t know what she would do if he asked her to._

_“I know,” he said, voice gentle, like he was reassuring her rather than the other way around. And it_ hurt _. She dropped her eyes over his shoulder, clutching the fabric of his kimono, feeling something loosen and break inside her, spinning fast out of her control. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t._

_He made a sound of protest, his hand lifting her jaw up and without her consent, she looked at him. Her throat went dry._

_“Sango,” he said, blood on his jaw, his voice making her name sound beautiful. “You’ve taken so much from me. Don’t take this from me too.”_

_And she broke, fractured right along the length of his hands, because she had never wanted to take anything. There was nothing inside her to_ hold _anything anymore. She was a wasteland, only destruction, only destructive, and he knew that and she knew that—and really, what was holding her back? This was only another thing that could go no where, that she would lose, but in the landscape of her losses this felt right and bright and good and how could she regret this?_

_What would it take to make her regret this?_

_When he leaned down to kiss her, she closed her eyes, mouth opening under his, and knew in that moment she would give him anything. And when he suddenly went still, she could tell he knew it too._

_She felt his sharp intake of his breath, the tightening of his hand in her hair, and when she opened her eyes, mouths still touching, his were fire and starlight, filled with something like awe and disbelief and deeper still, a yawning blackness that would consume her entirely if she let him._

_And she would._

_When he backed her into the wall, she sighed into his mouth. When his hand fell hot on the opening of her kimono, she clutched him tighter. With her every little surrender, she felt his breath quicken, his touch grow more bold, more erratic, her name like a prayer on his lips and the light in his eyes spinning and coalescing, greed and hunger and awe. She felt beautiful, like fine china in his hands, and she never wanted it to end._

_She was already so broken. What was one more thing to give?_

* * *

Kagome found her in the darkest corner of the inn, curled into a ball and staring blankly at nothing. 

“I will kill him,” she told her. “I will kill him for what he did to me.”

That was all any of them would get. Sango just couldn’t give anymore. There was a precipice inside her she didn’t dare near. She’d thought what loomed beyond had been empty before, but what filled it now could swallow the whole world.

Kagome didn’t say anything, just wrapped her arms around her. Sango resisted only a second before going pliant, and when she let go even a little she just couldn’t stop.

Sango cried. But even in her tears she was silent.

 

* * *

_They’d been standing in the garden, laughing when she’d looked up and found him so close she could count his eyelashes. There had been no disguising the look in his eyes and everything—him, her them—had struck her like a thunderbolt. How had she been so_ stupid _?_

_“You are a lord,” she had stuttered, drawing away, only for him to follow her, his eyes crinkling in warmth._

_“Astute. I knew you’d catch on someday.”_

_He was joking. He was making jokes! Gods. Her hands had started to tremble as she lifted them, to ward him off? To push him away?_

_“I’m a fool,” she had whispered, shaking her head._

_He’d only smiled. “_ My _little fool.”_

_And he’d reached out, hands cupping her jaw and drawing her to him, and she’d done nothing to stop him. He’d kissed her. His mouth had been warm and sweet, everything that she’d ever dreamed of for her first kiss as a little girl, and it terrified her down to the marrow._

_When he’d pulled away, she’d looked at him, wide eyed, the deer in the face of a predator, and had fled._


	10. Day 43

**Chapter 10: Day 43**

Sango woke to the sound of rain striking the roof in harsh staccato. It was still dark. She was lying on a futon, still fully clothed, one of Kagome’s blankets draped over her. No one was in the room. 

She sat up, the blanket sliding from her shoulders, and watched as lightning flashed through the shoji screen, the trees outside dark, cruel shapes on the white silk. She counted three heart beats, then a rumbling moan of thunder swept across the land, followed by a curtain of silence. 

In the stillness, her throat closed up, some feral thing clawing its way up. She needed to go.

She didn’t bother to shuck her dress or tie up her hair, just strapped her guards on her arms through the material, then hiked up her skirt to do the same for her thighs. The moment she’d slid her boots on and stood to do a series of quick stretches, the tightness in her chest eased. Hiraikotsu wasn’t in the room and neither was Kirara. It was fine. She didn’t want to bring either. She just needed to breathe. 

The rasp of her blade against its metal sheath filled the silence, making her fingers tremble and her pulse pound, but when she moved to the shoji screen and opened it, she made no sound. She slipped over the threshold of the doorway to the porch, looking around. There was no one, just shadows stalking down hallways with what felt like endlessly closed doors. She turned away and jumped down to the ground, her boots squelching only a little. 

The rain caught her like an old memory. It’s embrace was cold. She paused, looking up briefly, and the droplets pelted painfully on her upturned face, making her squint. A few seconds, and her long hair was already starting to plaster to her back. 

If she was waiting for something, to feel something, it wasn’t coming. 

She looked down at her hands, clenching them, then strode purposefully around the building without looking back. 

* * *

Sango walked in the rain, numb, absorbing the silence and the smells around her. 

She had never been to this part of the world before. The farthest south she’d ever travelled was when she was twelve. She remembered her and Kohaku spying the coast from several hundred leagues away and staring with open astonishment at the blue ocean that swept like an endless field to the horizon. They’d huddled together, sleepy eyed and oblivious to the other taijya cleaning up the camp site. She had held his hand til dawn.

She was farther south now then she had been then. It was warmer than what she was used, even as the rain felt like shards of ice and she had to dart under the trees to avoid it. The trees too were different, thinner and more branched then their thickly barked cousins from more snowy regions. The smell in the air was more loamy than woodsy, with just a hint of salt. 

She picked her way through the underbrush between flashes of lightning, forming something of a loose circle around the village, hoping that pacing the perimeter would put word and substance to the white noise in her head. But all she could think about was the harsh rub of her boots on the bare skin of her knees, the drag of her hair on her scalp, and how she could barely feel anything in her cold, wrinkling fingers. 

It was almost a relief, then, when she accidentally stumbled into a youkai rat den. 

She nearly lost her foot when a head snapped out of nearby hole and tried to bite off her ankle. Instinct kicked in. Before her brain had registered the threat, her body dodged back in a one-handed flip, and she landed lightly on her feet, arms in a fighting stance. In the time she had jumped back, several dark shadows had scurried out of the hole, beady eyes gleaming a dull yellow.

More creatures kept pouring out of the hole. Ten. Twenty. _Thirty_. 

Her kisode and skirts were heavy with rain water but it would work. A quick jerk of the fabric at her waist loosened the skirt and let her widen her stance. Her hand fluttered down to her waist, to the hilt of her short sword. The rat youkai who had tried to bite her, coming nearly to her hip when on its haunches, cocked its head at her. It’s large, yellow hand-length teeth seemed to grin at her. 

" _Taijya_ ,” it hissed, flexing its claws.

Twenty minutes later, their numbers had dwindled down to only two. 

Rats were sneaky and clever, but they were cowards. Fortunately for her, the pack was young. They were not used to humans, and most of the smaller ones had shrunk away at the sight of her. There were ten or so medium sized rats and they had all tensed, snarling at her, but only the leader had worked up the courage to charge.

After she’d neatly gutted him down the belly, the other rats went into to a frenzy of panic and confusion and she’d mowed through them. 

A few escaped into the forest, but not many. A few had scurried back down the hidey-hole and later, when she returned to the inn to retrieve her pack, she’d have to remember to come back here and throw a poison bomb down there to finish them off. Better to spoil the nest then let it become occupied again. 

One or two had been trampled by their own brethren, mewling pitifully until she put them out of their misery. The remaining had tried to fight, but she’d been trained with swords since she was an overeager five year old.

She whirled a kick into the back of the smallest, hearing the crunch of its body against a tree. The second gave a shriek and tried to jump for her throat, but she caught it mid air with an arm, slamming it to the ground and swiftly pinning it down with her foot.

"Who sent you?" she demanded, ignoring its squeals of pain. "How do you know who I am?"

At her demand, the creature’s two front feet stopped scratching at her ankle. It looked up at her, sickly yellow eyes, and she felt a chill at the sudden awareness in them. 

It opened it’s mouth. She flinched an arm up to block her face, but the miasmic spit she was expecting didn’t come. Instead, it _screeched_. The sound split through her head, making her eyes spill over with tears, and she lurched. She struggled not to drop to her knees and cover her ears. 

That wasn’t a scream. That was a _call_. 

With a yell of her own, she forced her sword arm into a swing. Her blade bit into the soft flesh of the rat youkai’s neck. 

The screech cut off, leaving abrupt silence. 

She stumbled back quickly, panting, staring at the youkai’s steaming corpse. Her sleeves were soaked in black youkai blood. Dark rivulets streaked down her bare arms, the acidity of it stinging slightly.  

Breathing hard, she peered around to make sure nothing was left and sheathed her sword. She stumbled to a nearby tree and pressed her back to it. The rain was still beating down on her, so she held out her arms, hoping the rain would wash most of the blood away from her skin. She closed her eyes, seeing a faint red haze that pulsed with her still rapidly beating heart.

She needed to leave the clearing and take stock. This was the second time a youkai had known what she was and she _hadn’t_ been wearing her taijya uniform. She should retreat back to the inn, perhaps discuss a strategy with her companions…Her face twisted sharply.

She stood there, panting, and opened her eyes, seeing only the mess of tree branches forming dark mazes above her. 

She turned to examining herself, noting the angry scratches on her legs, a shallow but messy one on her bare right arm, but otherwise unharmed. At the thought she felt an odd rush of anger. It had been too easy. It hadn’t hurt enough. They hadn’t fought _hard_ enough—

She cut off the thought, clenching her fists and pushing them into her eyes. She hissed a little at the sting of rain water on her exposed arm scratch and yet at least it was _something_ —gods, she was going crazy. 

What was she doing?

"What are you doing?" 

Sango’s whole body seized. Then, as reality reasserted itself, she started to tremble. She was not ready for this. But that didn’t matter. She beat the feeling back, breathing deeply through her nose, then slowly lowered her hands from her face. 

It was Inuyasha— _of course_ it was. He was reclining against a tree several yards from her, arms crossed, and he didn’t even look like the rain or the mud had touched him. She became suddenly aware of the dirt caked on her face, the gritty feel and weight of her clothes, the blood still dark splatters on her skin. 

"Nothing." Her voice came out hoarse, cracking. 

His eyes traced her figure, then turned his attention to the rat corpses. When he looked back at her, a single eyebrow was raised.

"Nothing," he echoed, unimpressed.

But when he had turned his head, a flash of lighting had illuminated his profile and she’d had a chance to look at the place she had hit him a few hours ago. To her great shock, there was nothing—no wound, no scar, no anything. When he opened his mouth to say something, she found herself saying, "It’s healed, then."

He paused, confused. She felt a sharp stab of guilt. _Why hadn’t he been angry?_

"I’m sorry," she blurted out.

Recognition flickered in his eyes. He raised a hand to his chin. After a moment, he shrugged. "Didn’t really hurt."

Her fingers reached up to her own face, touching the scar he had given her two weeks ago. When it had stopped bleeding, she’d stopped bandaging it, but it was still red and a little raw looking. She saw him tense when he noticed. "Still," she muttered. "You didn’t deserve it."

His expression was wary now, eyes flicking to her scar. She felt a flash of regret—she hadn’t brought it up to imply anything. She dropped her hand.

They stared at each other. 

"What happened?" he said, finally. She knew he wasn’t talking about the rat youkai. She clenched her jaw, trying to fight down feeling like a cornered animal. They were back to square one, back to yesterday. Their conversations always circled round and round, never changing. They would always end the same way.

This was no good. She didn’t know how to talk to him in a way that wasn’t angry, hurtful, spiteful. She was tired of sticking her foot in her mouth. Maybe the best thing was to do was not say anything at all. 

She turned her back on him, intending to walk back to the inn. 

"Where are you going?" he said sharply.

"I don’t want to argue with you," she retorted. She felt more than heard him follow her, the strikes of his heels on the ground reverberating into her soles. He pulled up beside her, face full of annoyance. 

"Is that what you do," he asked, "just run away when things get uncomfortable?"

She twitched, even as she kept walking. "I am not running. I just don’t know what to say."

"No?" he said. "Seemed like you had plenty to say earlier. So talk." When she said nothing, he sighed sharply. "You are so fucking confusing. _You_ were the one that kept going on about being a team player, but now that its your turn to give something, clearly you are a _hypocrite_ —"

That cut. She whirled on him. "You don’t know what you’re talking about."

His face turned serious. "Then tell me."

_No_. Frustration made her hands shake. "You won’t understand."

"Oh yeah?" he challenged. "Only because you won’t let me _try_."

There was a beat of silence, where Sango couldn’t hide the look of shock of her face. Inuyasha just glared at her defensively. But he was honest. For once, he was being god damn honest, she could see it. 

_There was blood on his face. But it was his eyes, filled with something like regret and compassion and that other thing she would not name that made her throat close up._

She started to tremble. No, just _no_. She was not going to do this. She was not going to start caring about how he felt. She didn’t have the capacity to feel anything for anyone anymore. She’d been down this road with Kagewaki before. 

"Why now?" she said finally, and Inuyasha must have heard the edge to it, because his ears flattened slightly.

"What?"

"Why now?" she demanded. Her voice was raising in volume. "Why all of the sudden are you trying to care now? You’ve never cared before."

He frowned at her. "That’s—"

"Don’t _lie_ ," she hissed. She clenched her hands into fists. "This has only ever been a mutually beneficial relationship. Don’t pretend that just because we had a…a moment the other day means that anything has changed."

He reared back as if she’d slapped him, shock registering on his expression. And then he tensed and _finally_ , the anger she had been waiting for was suddenly there, a roaring seething beast under his skin. 

"You unfeeling bitch," he said and she flinched, stung. But then she thought, yes, _this_ was familiar territory. 

"That’s right," she lashed out, poking a finger into his chest, ignoring the flash of warning in his eyes, "Don’t forget it again. You don’t care and I don’t want you to care. The only thing I _want_ is Naraku’s head on a pike and I will _use all of you_ to get it—"

Faster than she could see, he grabbed her offending hand, squeezing til her bones creaked painfully and she was baring her teeth at him. He bared his teeth back. "I have had it up to here with you’re lying bull shit," he practically snarled, and she felt her chest squeeze in dismay, _no,_ that wasn’t the right response. "You are fucking unbelievable—"

But Sango had had enough of this conversation.

She tried to jerk her hand out of his grasp, but he was as always, unmovable. Her pulse ratcheted up in her throat. God, he always made her feel out of _control_. 

"Let go," she bit out, and she reached up and grabbed a thick handful of hair, yanking. He snarled, his other hand grabbing her arm, fingers digging into the scratch on her arm hard enough to make her yowl, and then she was jerking back and he was crowding into her and her back hit a low hanging branch. 

"Would you stop with this _again_ —" he was saying, teeth gritted, but she was no longer listening. 

She kicked out at his knee, just like last time. He cursed and fell, dragging her under him, and they hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of her. She immediately bucked underneath him, nearly unseating him, but he recovered his balance swiftly. He straddled her waist, his free hand immediately gripping her hand in his hair, and then he was twisting her wrist slowly but painfully inwards until her bones couldn’t take it. She finally let go of his hair with a gasp, reeling back to alleviate the twist, and then both her hands hit the ground on either side of her harshly. 

It was like an awful parody of that time before, her on the ground, him on top of her, but there was nothing sexual about it this time. They were doing this same song and dance, over and over again, and she wanted to scream. 

"Let go," she panted.

"Then stop always fighting me," he snapped back, equally out of breath.

They were at an impasse. 

The rain poured down on the two of them as they stared at each other. His expression cooled slowly until he was just looking at her, expression unreadable, so always god damn unreadable. She watched as his hair became matted with water and rivulets of water sleuthed down his face and chin to pour onto her chest. It was cold. Her hands were numb. He was a warm brand on her wrists, on her stomach and hips, on either side of her legs. He was her only connection to any feeling other than the dull thud of her pulse.

She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to laugh. Fate was a cruel thing. It had been easier when she had thought of him as a monster. She still wanted to believe it, desperately wanted to go back. But how could she, anymore?

There was no going back. There never had been. She could only keep stumbling down the path laid before, making the same mistakes over and over again.

He must have sensed her despair because the grip on her wrists lessened a fraction. "I am going to move off you now," he said slowly. "Okay?"

He waited patiently till she nodded. She felt him shift his weight, his knees sliding backwards through the mud, and then he was carefully pulling her up into a sitting position, his hands still around her wrists. She let him, pulling herself up the rest of the way, and watched as he scooted far enough that she’d have to lunge to get at his face. Then, slowly, he let her go, his palms held up and open in an unthreatening way as he sat back on his heels. Slowly, her arms dropped into her lap. 

They stared at each other in silence. Eventually, the cold won out and her legs curled up to her body and she wrapped her arms around them. Her muscles felt stiff and aching, her skin hot and painful where she had been scratched from her earlier fight. She realized, suddenly, that she was exhausted. Too little sleep, to much emotion, too much happening at once. She wanted the ground to swallow her up, take her someplace warm and dry where there was no voices, no complicated men, no dreams. 

She must have started to doze off because there was a noise and she jolted her head up to find Inuyasha in the process of disrobing from his haori. He froze, looking at her, but when she only blinked blearily at him, he shucked his remaining arm out of his haori, giving the jacket a sharp shake that cast a dazzling arc of water in the air. Almost immediately, under the slow drizzle, his white undershirt began to plaster to his skin. 

With only a little hesitation, Inuyasha held his jacket out to her. She looked at it, then looked at him. He sighed sharply, then leaned forward, one knee coming down to squelch in in the mud as his arms loosely caged her and the coat draped over her head and back. 

It was warm, almost shockingly so. Instinctually she reached up, drawing it tighter to herself. It smelled like him—woodsy, the way the smell of winter trees with thick bark was cloying during the spring. She breathed in deeply. She saw from her peripherals that his arms fell to his sides, but he didn’t move away. After a moment of staring blankly at his chest, she tilted her head up to look at him. 

He was staring down at her. His eyes weren’t really yellow, but a dark amber with veins of gold at the edges and brown near the slitted iris—were studying her own, flicking minutely between them. His mouth was drawn into a frown, but it was soft in a way she’d never seen—or maybe never cared to see. 

Afterwards, she would blame her tiredness, or their fight, or the dreams. She would blame how it had felt when he’d called her an unfeeling bitch, because despite everything, she really wasn’t, even if she desperately wanted to be. She found herself reaching a hand up, watching as he flinched and then steeled himself for a slap. But she only pressed a brief open palm to the collar of his wet transparent shirt, then skirted up his throat, her thumb skimming a vein and making him swallow convulsively. 

Her fingers found his chin, where she had cut him with the plate, in the exact place—she flinched—that she had hit Kagewaki too. This close up, she could see now that the wound wasn’t in fact fully healed. A white webbed thread spread from his lower jaw, clawing up his cheek. She pressed a thumb to it, feeling the rough edge of healed skin. By tomorrow, it would be gone. 

"I really am sorry," she whispered. 

She jumped at a mirrored touch on her own cheek, her eyes flashing down to find that he too had reached up, the back of his knuckles tracing the mark he had given her. 

It wasn’t a demanding or a sensual touch, like she half expected, and yet somehow it made her heart clench. When was the last time that someone had touched her without demand or pity? When her father would pat her head affectionately? When she could get Kohaku, rolling his eyes with embarrassment, to hold her hand?

"Me too," he said gruffly, not looking her in the eyes, and something in Sango broke a little.

Without thinking she leaned into the touch, eyes closing tightly. He froze, but she ignored him. Her hand moved from his face to his arm, clutching at his wrist. _Please_ , she thought, not even knowing what exactly she was asking. Maybe for time to stop. Just give her a moment. This moment. 

When she did nothing, she felt his hand relax perceptibly against her. There was a pause, then his palm turned over and he was cupping her jaw they way she had his, a thumb tracing delicately over the split of the scar on her cheekbone.  A pleasant warmth shivered through her. She breathed out slowly into his wrist, not realizing she had been holding her breath, and felt more than heard him swallow. 

Her wound she knew was an ugly blotchy red, though it was high up enough on her face that her hair usually covered it completely. Not so now, with her wet hair sticking to her neck. And unlike his, it would most definitely scar.

Unbidden, a memory of a dream. _Let it. Something of you to keep._

She jerked, eyes snapping open. Her eyes met his. After a moment, she let go of his wrist, and then slowly, she felt him let go of her cheek, his hand dropping into his lap. His touch was still there though, a lingering warmth where his skin had met hers.

She couldn’t look away. The way he was looking at her pinned her to the ground. Like somehow she was an open book and he was reading every page. She swallowed, fingers curling in her lap. 

Finally, he looked away, staring at something over her shoulder. He leaned back on his haunches, then stood in a graceful, effortless motion. Even muddied and wet, he somehow looked untouched. Untouchable. 

"Dawn is a few hours away," he said, sounding annoyed, but that was how he normally sounded when he talked to her. He held out a hand to her. "You should sleep."

She looked at him, then looked at his hand, then reached out and grasped it. He hauled her quickly to her feet, letting her go the moment she had her own balance, and she felt an odd disappoint when the brief warmth of his hand quickly faded in the cold. When he only stood there, staring her down again with uncharacteristic patience, she simply turned and began to head back the way they had come. 

Sango clutched the haori tightly to herself, but it still didn’t protect her from the searing gaze that she knew was trained on her back the entire trip back. The rain started to abate and yet the silence that replaced it was somehow worse. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to dissect her piece by piece or flay her open or just examine her until she shriveled under his gaze. The feeling didn’t abate until they were in the inn yard and she turned her attention to tiredly hauling herself up onto the porch. 

Her body, of course, decided this was the perfect moment to protest. Her arms felt like wet noodles struggling against her body weight and she felt acute embarrassment at him watching her struggle so pathetically. 

Suddenly, there was a wall of heat at her back. His hands on her body, longs fingers spanning the curve of her hip bones. She stiffened, a sharp bolt of something down her spine, but then she was being hoisted up and sat down on her knees on the porch floor. She jerked around to find him standing behind her. To her surprise, he was out right glaring at her in challenge. 

A horrifying flush started to creep up her neck. Even after everything, apparently, she could still find it in her to be mortified. But she hung on valiantly to her dignity. It would be unbelievably petty to tell him she could do it herself when she clearly couldn’t, but somehow she couldn’t fit the words "thank you" out of her mouth. 

He grunted, looking up at the sky, then looking her up and down, reminding her distinctly that she was waterlogged and probably looked and smelled like a dead rat. Many dead rats. "I don’t want to stand here til dawn," he said crossly. "Go to bed."

She gave him a withering look before getting to her feet and walked to her room. She barely repressed the urge to slam the shoji screen behind her. She waited in the darkness, clutching his jacket to her, until she heard him give an annoyed sigh and finally walk away. 

Later, after she had bathed herself as best she could with the water bowl in the corner and she had laid his haori, neatly folded, outside the door, she lay curled under the blanket staring blankly into the darkness. Her fingers touched her cheek, thinking about that moment in the rain. Tracing the scar that was his, that he had given her.

_Let it. Something of you to keep._

* * *

Despite everything, she still dreamed.

_"What are you thinking about?" she asked from the curve of his arm. His dark hair tickled her fingertips._

_He turned, crooked a half smile at her. His hand ghosted along her skin, and she shivered._

 

**Day 44**

 

Dawn was cold and grey and still raining

Sango heard Kagome packing from where she sat on the walkway outside the girl’s room. The girl and Shippou softly whispered to each other, the kitsune occasionally giggling. Sango rested her head against the wooden pillar she’d been sitting next to, trying just to listen. The rain made a hollow thump-thump on the clay roof. 

Eventually, there was the snick of the shoji screen opening from behind her. Kagome appeared in a crouch at her peripherals, absently smoothing the pleats in her skirt as she peered at the view Sango had been staring at for some hours. 

"Sango?" she asked. "Will you be coming with us?"

Sango looked at her, then back at the trees and lifted a hand in a wave. The girl hesitated, then stood and laid a brief hand on her shoulder. Somehow, it wasn’t as overbearing as Sango thought it might be. 

"We’re heading a little more south," she said, "Feel free to join us anytime, okay?" She waited til Sango nodded, then smiled and left her alone.  

Sango listened as Kagome directed Shippou to carry something and then began dragging her bag towards the front of the inn. Around the corner, the noise— and the kitsune’s cautious 'Is she okay?'—faded beneath the thumping of the rain.

Sango thought about getting up and looking for Miroku, ask him more details about where they were headed, maybe apologize. She wondered, briefly, if either he or Inuyasha would show up. To ask her again what happened. They didn’t. 

She stayed on the porch for another hour or so, ignoring the quick steps of the servants and their whispers. She kept her eyes on the tree line and her hand on Kirara, who lay curled in a small warm ball at her hip. 

**Day 45**

If she’d thought she’d already experienced the worst of it, she was gravely mistaken. 

She dreamed of Kagewaki all over again, every excruciating new detail. Felt every tug and burn of emotion as if she didn’t know how it would really end.  

She woke—hot, yearning, empty, wrathful, her arm sleeve soaked with tears. 


	11. Day 47

**Chapter 11: Day 47**

The innkeeper gave her a suspicious look as she dropped her pack on the ground.

"What kind of cat is that?" he asked, trying to peer at Kirara, who was in small form and had buried her face inside Sango’s hair per standard procedure. Cute as she was, the elderly were always suspicious of her.

"A mountain breed from the north," she said. "Do you have any additional rooms available?"

He finally stopped trying to peer at Kirara eyes. "A few more. why?"

"For my companions," she began, "they should be arriving sometime—"

"Inuyasha! _Osuwari_!"

"—never mind," she finished quickly.

The giant crash interrupted their conversation. The innkeeper whirled around, bewildered, then quickly bowed and barreled into the house shouting for answers. Blinking, Sango left her bag for the servants and walked around to the other side of the building.

She found them in one of the larger rooms, the screen door ajar slightly. A table had been set up for tea. On the ground outside, Kagome was standing up, hands on hips, and glaring down at a snarling Inuyasha. Beside her, Shippou was sniffling.

"Stop picking on him," Kagome was saying.

"You treat him like a baby," Inuyasha snapped back. "He will never learn if you keep stepping in when he causes problems."

"He wasn't doing anything bad!"

Sango quietly moved to the table were Miroku sat, serenely drinking tea. She raised an eyebrow at him and he merely smiled.

"Nice weather, yes?" he said. "Here, try on of these." He handed her a thin, metal-like bag that crinkled in her hand. Inside were weird thin shapes. 

"What’s this?" she said, examining the bag. It was silver and reflective inside. An incredibly light form of metal? But it didn’t feel like metal and it was far too light…

"Chips," he said absently. Then he saw her pointing at the bag. "Oh. No idea. Some kind of container that people use in Kagome’s time?"

Shippou, who had slunk over to her in a pitiful bid for her affection, perked up immediately at her question and inspected the bag with a self important air. "I’ve seen a lot these before," he told her proudly. "There all over the place in Kagome’s time." But he didn’t seem to know what it was either. 

Sango was interrupted in her investigation by a loud gasp.

She looked up to see Kagome running towards and she had a painful sense of deja vu, a flash of her brother running towards her outlined by the sun, before Kagome had wrapped her arms around her neck. She forced herself to breath, patting the crown of Kagome’s head, and quickly averted her gaze when Kagome pulled away and beamed back at her. 

"What is this?" she said quickly, nearly shoving the bag in Kagome’s face. At the girl’s confused look, Sango clarified, "the shiny metal stuff?"

"Oh." The confusion cleared. "I think that is aluminum? It’s a type of metal that you can cut so fine that its flexible and light."

Sango blinked, intrigued despite the fact that she had asked as a distraction, and was going to open her mouth to ask about its potential to make weapons when Inuyasha stepped up into the room after Kagome, muttering darkly to himself. Her eyes flashed up, meeting his at the exact moment he noticed her in the room. He paused, his angry expression ebbing away. 

"Aluminum is pretty cool," Kagome was saying to Sango, which she barely heard over the sudden buzz in her ears. Memories of their last encounter flashed through her mind, making her nervous. Should she feel nervous? Kagome was saying, "—There are all sorts of interesting uses for it in the future because it’s cheap, flexible, conducts heat and electricity well—"

To Sango’s own consternation, Inuyasha broke the gaze easily and turned to Kagome. "Kagome," he grated out. "You know she doesn’t actually care."

Sango tried to suppress her flush even as Kagome vaulted to her feet, hands on hips. "And who says," she snapped, "You? Just because _you_ don’t care doesn’t mean everyone else doesn’t—"

"Just because you _think_ someone cares doesn’t mean they—"

Shippou jumped up, "Hey, you big—" A thump and a muffled shout, and all the occupants turned to look at him. Or rather, at who was now holding him.

"Gods," Miroku said loudly. He was sipping tea calmly with one hand, the other arm keeping Shippou’s head securely under his armpit. Shippou’s struggles were valiant, but clearly futile. "Can you guys give it a rest? It’s still the morning."

Kagome looked at Miroku, flushing, then glared back at Inuyasha and stuck her tongue at him. He bared his teeth. 

Sango held her arms out to Miroku, looking pointedly at the monk’s own lapse of maturity with a raised eyebrow. With a put upon sigh, he grabbed Shippou’s skull with one hand and deposited the now snarling kitsune into Sango’s arms. The kid easily submitted to her embrace, even as he hissed and spit at the monk, who only raised a menacing eyebrow at him. 

Taking pity on him, Sango petted Shippou’s comfortingly, amused when he immediately started to make funny purring noises between nasty glances thrown in Miroku’s direction. Kagome came over to her, putting her head next to Shippou’s and commiserating in loud grumpy whispers with the kitsune about the stupidity of men. Miroku sipped his tea, ignoring them all beatifically, and Sango tried not to roll her eyes. 

She looked up, still smiling, only for her pulse to stutter in her throat when she found Inuyasha’s gaze practically burning holes into her. He hadn’t so much as batted an eyelash at her a moment before. And now he was..angry? No that was not quite right…

Before she could figure out the expression on his face, he clamped down on it quickly, his scowl now sullen, and sat down with a thump against a wall. He didn’t look at her for the rest of the day. 

**Day 49**

Things started to get… weird.

At first, she thought maybe it was because Inuyasha didn’t like how easily Sango was always accepted back into the fold. How Kagome clung to her like she was starved for a female/sister/friend, how Shippou jumped on her shoulder when he was getting sleepy from walking, how Miroku seemed to always weigh her opinion above the others. 

She was the not-quite-stranger that flitted in and out of their lives and she could see—and did see—how it buried under Inuyasha’s skin. How he grit his teeth and looked away.

Then she thought maybe it was because of their last encounter. Or the encounter before that. Something had changed between them, whether she wanted to admit it or not. He was not a monster anymore than she was. And he was not heartless. Any more than she could be. 

It was a good thought, until she realized after a few hours that it felt like only _she_ had changed. While she was suddenly noticing him more, he continued on blithely ignoring her. No, he was acting perfectly normal in that regard. So after some contemplation, she shelved that idea and returned to her original one. 

But that wasn’t all of it. Another small piece clicked into place when another equally banal squabble broke out in the morning. As the argument escalated, she realized with a start that Inuyasha seemed to be increasingly biting his tongue. She had only known him to bluntly say whatever he felt.  

She mulled the idea over breakfast in silence, staring at her tea, trying to carefully piece together her thoughts. Miroku and Kagome chatted amiably, Inuyasha with his back to them all in sulky silence. She stared at his back through mouthfuls of rice and fish. 

There was a distance, she thought. A yawning distance that she had never noticed before. Between Inuyasha and everyone else. 

Maybe she had only noticed now because her own hypocrisy was laid bare before her since the other night. Her own words haunted her. _I will use you all_. 

As if reading her thoughts, she saw him turn his head, catching her eye before she could pretend she wasn’t staring. Anger spasmed across his face—she didn’t know what her expression looked like, pitying? She flushed, caught, looking down into her rice. When she did look up again, he was staring stiffly at the wall.

She thought Inuyasha would lash out at her more after that, but in that, she was mistaken. Rather, he barely looked at her. When he did, there was a dismissiveness to it that at times both infuriated her and appeased her sense of guilt. She should really just mind her own business.

She repeated this to herself as she went searching for fire wood with Kagome later that night. She half-listened to Kagome’s chatter, chewing her lip and telling herself it was absolutely her imagination that there were a pair of eyes watching them both from the dark. 

She had her own problems. She couldn’t even begin to think of how to help herself, so how was she was supposed to help someone who probably didn’t even want her to?

That night, stretched out under the stars near the campfire as everyone else slept peacefully, Sango resolved to put the thoughts aside. 

But still, it gnawed at her, _hypocrisy_.

                                                                                 

* * *

                   

The dream began the same like every other night. 

_He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. She watched him covertly from where her head rested in the curve of his arm, fingers toying with his dark hair, tracing the shape of his nose, his lips. His expression was smooth. So at odds to the face in her memory of hours before, intense and piercing. She felt her neck flush a little._

_"What are you thinking about?" she whispered._

_He crooked a half smile at her. It transformed his face, pulling at the laugh lines around his violet eyes and mouth. His hand ghosted along her skin, and she shivered._

_His smile widened. "What are_ you _thinking about?" he said, and the flush crept into her face. His eyes traced it, darkening._

_He rolled them over, her on her back while he towered above her, his arms bracketing her shoulders._

_Then something shifted, the world spinning—_

_Now she felt grass under her back. The ceiling was gone, given way to thousands of bright stars. His golden eyes looked beautiful under the moonlight. He leaned over her, silver hair falling all around her._

_Her mouth opened under his, the prick of fangs on her tongue. His hand was on her chin, then her neck, fingers tracing the collar of her dress before returning to cup the ball of her shoulder, his thumb settling in the hollow under her collar bone._

_She moaned. She felt his smirk, the point of his teeth._

_Boldly, his hand moved lower, cupping her breast through her dress—_

She flung her eyes open with a gasp, fumbling with the blankets. Sweat trickled on the back of her neck, her chest. She nearly rolled into the smoldering fire beside her, jerked back to barely avoid it, and scrambled to her hands and knees instead. She stared at the ground, panting, her rabid pulse overwhelming her head and sight. 

Kirara made an inquiring noise, lifting her head from the other side of the fire. Miroku too had stirred, moving into a sitting position. He blinked at her, quickly assessing, and when he found nothing alarming, brought a hand to his mouth and yawned.

"You okay?" he asked.

Sango jerked her head up, then shifted to a sit with her legs stretched out, leaning back with her arms supporting her. 

"I’m—" She paused, swallowed thickly. "I’m okay."

Miroku nodded, yawning. Kirara cocked her head at her, slitted eyes narrowed, and Sango looked away with a flush. 

"Just a dream," she muttered to the cat, moving to lay fully back and stare at the sky. Bright stars, white and yellow and gold.

Her body still burned where he’d touched. No, he hadn’t touched. He’d never touched and he never would touch, she reminded herself. 

She tried to ignore the pair of golden eyes that, even from some several yards at the perimeter, was boring into her upturned, flushed face. After a moment she turned to lay on her stomach, turning her back to him and staring with wide awake eyes at the grass beneath her hair. 

**Day 50**

The young woman shook her head. "I haven’t heard anything recently. But you may want to head to the village down the road. They get visited by caravans more than we do."

How many villages ago had she started hearing that?

Sango tried to smile, knowing it probably looked as stiff as it felt. "Thank you. I appreciate your time." She bowed.

The girl nodded and moved away, shifting her basket of fabrics from one hip to another. Sango watched as she meandered through the crowd near the village center, pausing at a stand with a young man who looked up with a grin at her approach. 

She wondered how the others were faring. They’d just split up this morning and were planning to meet again at one of the larger villages in the area. She wondered if Miroku had charmed his way into another woman’s house again. If Kagome had cajoled Inuyasha in to—

She grimaced, kicking a sandal into the dirt. No, she did not need to think about them right now. She was going to see them in a day, about twenty miles east of here. All the villagers she talked to for the last few days kept sending her farther and farther south. 

_One more village_ , she thought, turning her back to the bustle and sound of the village square. Somewhere a child laughed. 

One more village. 

**Day 51**

_She found him in the castle gardens, plucking the petals of a small purple flower. On seeing her he stood up, laughing. He grabbed her hand, dragging her further into the garden, into the deep parts she’d never walked. The vines became thick and snarled. They reached for her, his hand slipping from her fingers—_

_Her back hit a tree._ He _was standing over her, silver-limed and glorious in his rage, sneering, a clawed fist above her head. Her heart hammering in her throat, she took a fist full of his red haori, pulled—_

_They were in the rain again. Except this time, he didn’t pull away. Instead he laid down flat on top of her, her arms still caged above her head. She waited, trembling, as his hands travelled down her wrists, his nose nuzzling into the crook of her neck._

_When he did kiss her, finally, it was so infinitely gentle that her heart clenched—_

**Day 52**

"Do you, uhh—" Kagome hesitated when Sango looked up from viciously sharpening her sword with a whet stone, but then blustered on bravely, "—want to take a break and go wash up? There is a hot-spring nearby."

Sango paused, looking blankly at the abused stone in her hand. When even Kagome could tell Sango was in a foul mood, there was a serious problem. Sango sighed, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "Sure."

The girl grinned, bouncing on her feet with barely leashed patience as Sango put away her tools and her sword and gathered her bathing things. She chattered to Sango as they walked away from the campsite in an easy way that required only hums and grunts as responses, and Sango was only too happy to let the sounds wash over her, soothing her frayed nerves. 

She’d found nothing useful in their search for Naraku. Worse, she’d not slept through a full night the last two days. Her eyes probably looked bloodshot. She didn’t care. She’d almost decided not to meet up with the group at all, but that was a coward’s way out, and besides clearly being away hadn’t stopped her from _dreaming_. 

She should have been relieved that she was no longer dreaming about the memories of Kagewaki. Except she wasn’t. Because what she was dreaming about _now_ …

She’d gone early to the appointed camp site and had so buried herself in armor repairs for both her and Kirara’s gear that she only barely noticed when the others showed up, and thank the gods, but pretty much all of them had gotten the hint and left her alone—

The hot-springs, it turned out, was a small pool nestled into the rock, just large enough to fit a couple people but no more. But it was deliciously hot. When Sango had quickly and efficiently scrubbed her body and hair clean in the nearby cold stream, she didn’t wait for Kagome to finish and quickly made her way to the pool. When she lowered herself stiffly onto one of the submerged rock ledges, the heat made her eyes roll briefly to the back of her head. She draped herself pliant and happy onto a protruding rock and just basked in the heat like Kirara occasionally did under the bright sun on lazy days. 

Kagome joined her minutes later, sighing in delight as she too submerged up to her neck. They talked only a little, light, superficial conversations punctuated by long moments of comfortable silence. It was perfect, exactly what she needed. Slowly, Sango felt the knots in her neck and back start to loosen.

Eventually, Kagome started to feel dizzy and got out. Sango stirred from her comfortable, drowsy sprawl, feeling slightly guilty. "Shall I get out with you?"

Kagome waved her down in between sliding her shirt and skirt back on. "No no, please stay. You look like you need a few more minutes. I’ll just walk up and down the river a bit to cool off, then I’ll come check on you if you’re not out yet, sound good?"

Sango acquiesced easily enough, sinking back into the lovely heat. She listened as Kagome, humming, picked her way down to the river bank and began prancing away, arms swinging akimbo, until she disappeared from view. 

It didn’t take long, however, for the peaceful moment to fade away. Without Kagome there, Sango no longer had a buffer from her thoughts. The longer she sat there, the easier it was to start brooding, and soon even the warmth of the water was more stifling than pleasing. 

With a sigh she too rose from the hot-spring, toweling herself and pulling on a clean underdress. Her taijya suit she would leave out to fully dry by the fire over night. Not wanting to return to camp and its inevitable company, she found herself moving higher up the cliff that the hot-spring was nestled in, in the oppose direction Kagome had gone. 

The top of the cliff wasn’t really that much farther up, so she hulled herself up with little effort. At the cliffs edge, a large boulder sat, and beside it, just enough space for her to squeeze into. She placed her back to the boulder, her legs dangling over the edge and propped her chin in her hands, looking down at the landscape. The view was nice enough—not high enough that she could see out of the valley, but enough that she could see the tops of some of the trees below and the river as it wounds its way farther west. 

The longer she sat there, the more she became aware of a pair of eyes on her. At first, she stiffened, then she tried to relax and ignore it, but the longer the seconds ticked, the more the muscles in her neck start to bunch up. Eventually she sighed, then turned a sharp gaze behind her into the perimeter of trees. 

"I know you’re there," she said crossly, getting to her feet. Using the a hand on the boulder as an anchor, she moved away from the edge. "If you’re trying to hide yourself, you’re not doing a very good job of it."

Inuyasha didn’t skulk out of the shadows so much as he stalked out of them, arms crossed. The moon was a thin crescent, slowly waning over the last few days as the new moon approached. But even in its sliver of light, the silver of his hair caught and shown luminescent, casting long sharp shadows on his face. He was always at his most harshest—and his most beautiful—under the moon. She looked away, scowling. 

"Did you find anything?" he asked. The ears on top of his head were twitching restlessly, one turned to her and the other at their surroundings. 

She glared at a pebble at her feet, kicking it heartlessly over the edge. "No."

He paused, processing. "How far south did you go?"

She pointed explicitly to her left, down the valley. She heard him step closer, probably craning his head and squinting. "See that village over there?" she couldn’t but he probably could. "That one."

It had taken her several hours by flight on Kirara. They’d made good time and good distance, even he would have to acknowledge that. He grunted, which was as much of as an admission as she would ever get from him, but made no move to step away again. He stood there, maybe an arms length from her back, and even at that distance she could almost feel the heat of him. She wished he’d go away, give her peace back. Give her her sleep back. 

When he opened his mouth to ask another question, she cut in harshly, "Why are you asking this? I told everything to Miroku already." _Go ask him_. She hoped he’d get the hint. 

There was a long silence, and then he said slowly, "Contrary to what you may think, I don’t actually answer to _Miroku_."

The bite in his voice made her turn to him involuntarily. He was staring stonily into the horizon. When he looked at her, amber eyes flashing in the moonlight, she found a surprising resentment there that made her only gape at him. 

"Sorry," she murmured finally, unsure of what else to say.

After a moment, the emotion flickered out of his eyes. He grunted. They both turned, looking out to the vista again. 

Slowly, Sango told him about her latest findings over the last few days. 

He mostly listened, occasionally asking her a question here or there. They were good questions, and she found that he was surprisingly observant. Soon he was leaning against the boulder and she was crouched on the ground beside him, back resting against the rock as she sketched out her next plans in the dirt with a finger. 

"If you guys head this way, then I’ll head this way—" she was saying.

He grunted, shaking his head. "I don’t think you should."

She paused, looking up at him. "Why?"

"Because Kagome sensed multiple jewel shards in that direction."

Her stare turned into a glare. "I can handle myself."

He looked down at her carefully. "I know."

She blinked.

"—But we don’t have enough information about what’s over there," he continued, ignoring her reaction. "And you can’t tell me you’ve faced that many jewel shards at once before."

She mulled that over sourly. "Fine," she said with some reluctance. "But what else is there to do? We don’t have time to check them one by one."

Suddenly, his expression turned inscrutable. He watched her in silence for a long moment until she started to feel nervous and asked, "What?"

"We could split into teams" he said finally, deceptively casual.

"Teams," she frowned. She bit her thumb. "Well I guess that could work. If Miroku came with me—"

Inuyasha made a sudden violent movement in her periphery and she cut off abruptly, looking up at him. His expression flashed first to something close to embarrassment, then to anger, then to defiance, but she felt only puzzled. "No? Well then what else…" 

She trailed off, staring at him. He returned her stare warily.

"Do you—" she started tentatively. "Do you want to go with me?"

Silence. He looked surprised at what she’d said. Or maybe the way she’d said it.

His jaw worked for a moment, unable to formulate any words, then he looked away, grunting. He scratched at the side of his face with a clawed finger. 

"There’d be too much of a power imbalance," he said. She knew what he meant. Miroku was strong, but his greatest strength was his spiritual powers, same as Kagome. Sango, on the other hand, was a close quarter and long range specialist. Like Inuyasha with Tessaiga and the wind scar, actually. It didn’t make much sense to pair the same type of specialists together.  

He hadn’t answered the question, though. 

She felt a flush work its way up her chest. The thought came to her suddenly, out of no where. What would it be like traveling with Inuyasha?

_His hands slid up her waist, skimming her front, then sliding up the underside of her arms, urging her arms to rise. His thumbs caressed the joint of the elbows, then rose higher, enclosing around her wrists, briefly, so that she was pinned with her arms above her head against the tree—_

"That would be a very bad idea," she agreed quickly, ducking her head to stare at her knees. Out of her periphery of her vision, she saw him stiffen, turning sharply towards hers. She wished her heart would stop pounding. 

_Let it go,_ she willed to him across the space between them. _Let it_ go _._

Sango was never so lucky. 

"A very bad idea?" he repeated slowly, and there was something dangerous in his tone that made her look up instinctually. Then she wished she hadn’t. He was glaring at her, the gold of his eyes so bright against the dark that she felt her pulse jump in her throat. 

Oh no. This was going somewhere she didn’t want it to go. She lifted both hands up, trying to diffuse the situation. "Come on, Inuyasha," she tried for light, swallowing. "It’s not a secret that we don’t get a long."

His face twitched. There was a heat there that scorched her insides. She couldn’t tell if he was angry—no he was definitely, angry—but there was something else too… "We could," he bit out darkly, "if you would occasionally _concede_."

_Concede._

Memories of the night of their spar hit her like a ton of bricks, and she mentally flailed for a moment. Which was exactly what he must have intended, judging by the smug look that flashed lightening quick across his face. Damn him. She stiffened, flushing. "Maybe if you _occasionally_ stuck to the rules," she shot back.

"There are no rules in a fight," he replied immediately, just like he had back then. 

She rolled her eyes angrily, pushing herself to her feet. "Oh please. Can you ever just—"

He blocked her path, his presence so sudden that she cut off abruptly, nearly stumbling back. Her back hit the boulder. Then he took a step forward and he was crowding her against the rock, his hair a silver sheet around them, his face so close that she could see how the silver of his lashes reflected against the gold of his eyes. 

"Are you afraid of me?" he said, and there was something simultaneously derisive and challenging in his tone that had her bristling despite being cornered. 

"Of course not," she snapped, glaring up at his face.

And then he did something that made her freeze. 

His gaze flickered down. His hand came up, slowly, knuckles ghosting up the skin of her hand, then the sleeve of her arm. His finger picked for a moment at the collar of her dress and she remembered sharply, aghast, that she was only wearing an under robe. She shrunk against the rock, resisting the urge to cover herself.

His eyes flickered at her movements. "Going to run away again?" he said softly, a hint of disappoint in his voice. Like she was some coward. He was baiting her, she _knew_ he was baiting her. 

And she took the bait like a fool, teeth snapping, " _No_." 

A flicker of a smirk against his mouth. The flash of his canines. She stilled, eyes catching on his teeth, heart thumping. She watched as the smirk faded under her gaze. 

"No?" he said, and then he was leaning closer, and the back of her head hit the rock hard, but he merely tilted his head and leaned into her neck, the heat of his proximity a ghost touch on her skin.

"How about now?" he asked harshly, his nose brushing her ear in first skin to skin contact, searing her to the bone. She shivered.

She shook her head mutely. Her mouth was dry. Her heart was pounding. She couldn’t pretend like she didn’t know where this was going. And she shouldn’t want this. She really shouldn’t want this. Not after what Naraku had done. And yet…

She had imagined it. Dreamed it. And she had wondered, in her darkest, most shameful moments. Could she chase away the memories of _him_ , the loneliness those memories left in her, if she replaced them with new ones?

Her mouth worked, trying to form words. "This is a bad idea," she said again, voice almost hoarse.

He stilled. "Why?"

"Why?" Frustration rose in her and she barked a harsh laugh. She reached out, clutching the lapel of his haori. But she didn’t push him away. "We don’t know each other enough. And we don’t need another complication when…" _We are searching for Naraku._

And what about Kagome? She still didn’t know what lay between the two of them…

"This doesn’t have to be complicated," he grunted, interrupting her thoughts. She stilled, eyes flickering up to his, and her breath caught. His eyes were dark, dark amber. Not red. Just a color so deep she couldn’t see where his iris started and his pupil began. 

Did it make her an awful person that the thought of Inuyasha wanting her as much as she wanted him made her want to surrender to him completely, regardless of the consequences?

"How can it not be?" she asked, afraid.

The knuckle of his hand grazed her cheek. The look in his eye was surprisingly serious. "Like you said." He paused, then echoed her words back to her. "This doesn’t have to change anything, if you don’t want it to."

The words hung between them, balanced on the edge of a knife. He was giving her a choice. She didn’t flatter herself into thinking this was anything more than shared lust and perhaps a mutual respect, and it was _wrong,_ it didn’t matter how lonely she was or how much she craved simply being _touched_ again—

Before she lost her nerve, she pushed to her tip toes and pressed her mouth to his. 

She felt his sharp inhale of breath. His arm lifted to rest beside her head, caging her in, but he didn’t make any move. He let her take control, pressing against him, her tongue licking the seam of his mouth, and when he finally opened up his mouth to her, she slipped in to trace with her tongue a single canine.

He shuddered against her, fist clenching near her head. She pulled back a little, panting for breath, and felt he was breathing equally as hard. 

Her eyes fluttered open, to find that he was already looking at her, pupils blown, and pure heat rolled down her spine at the sight, flooding her senses. Later, she would blame that for the way she smiled against his jaw and whispered, smug, "I _concede_."

His body jerked at her words, eyes flashing hotly as he was suddenly crowding her again, his hand moving to sink fingers into her hair—

"Sango?" came Kagome’s voice from below, curious.

The tension broke in the worst possible way. They broke apart immediately, him with a soft curse, her with a shaky breath. Then, when she knew she couldn’t just stand there looking like an idiot, she pushed away from the rock and peered over the edge. She looked down to see Kagome looking around near the base of the hot-spring. Soon enough, the girl had spotted her and was waving an arm. Kagome put her hands to her mouth. "What are you doing up there?" It sounded like she thought Sango was alone. 

Sango peeked a glance back at Inuyasha, who had turned away from her slightly at Kagome’s call. Already, to her great disappointment, the color in his eyes had returned to a steady pale amber. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, staring blankly at nothing. 

She looked away, clearing her throat. "Just taking in the sights," she called down. Then before Kagome could offer to come _up_ , she added, "I’m coming down right now."

The girl nodded, then proceeded to begin gathering their wet clothes. She would wait until Sango came down before heading back to camp. So there was no excuse to not head down. Not a tenable one, anyway.

She looked back to find Inuyasha studying her. While the immediate need was gone, there was something calculating in his gaze that made her pulse quicken, made her self consciously clutch at her dress sleeves. 

He didn’t approach her, but he didn’t have to.

"We are not finished," he said darkly, his tone as absolute as a vow and she shuddered under his gaze, "and next time, _you_ are going to make good on your word."

He walked away first, leaving her standing there. 


	12. Day 53

**Chapter 12: Day 53**

In the morning, they discussed their plans to move forward. She found herself giving up the more dangerous route to the west for a quick scouting mission to the east. She had tried not to react when Miroku had looked surprised—she normally never gave up a route, even if there were jewel shards along its path. But she’d only done it because she’d known with an almost animal instinct that if she’d argued, Inuyasha would have stepped in and suggested _teams_. And she just knew that no matter how illogical, he would have somehow got his _way_. 

When no one was looking, she felt his accusing stare like a brand against her back and she tried not to shiver.

She was a coward. A god damn coward. 

She left before breakfast so she wouldn’t have to face him staring at her over the campfire, making her wonder exactly what he had meant by what he’d said yesterday. And exactly what he’d do when he got his hands on her.

**Day 54**

Distance did not make the dreams go away. It made them _worse_. 

Under the cover of night, she mourned the second violent death of her decency and prayed to the gods that her father was not looking down at her, throwing curses at her from afar. 

**Day 55**

“Sango!” Kagome was waving at the top of the hill, her green skirt flashing like a beacon in the sunlight. She sounded happy. 

Sango’s back stiffened but otherwise she made no other outward signs of surprise. She bowed to the man she was talking to and excused herself, moving to wait at the bottom of the hill with Kirara trotting at her heels. She adjusted Hiraikotsu and her yukata, feeling the beat of the sun on her hair and back. It was another warm day. Maybe one of the last.

The snap of “Kagome!” from a disgruntled voice above made Sango look up from the loose thread on her sleeve she’d been nervously unravelling the last two day. 

To her alarm, Kagome had hastily descended down the slightly steep hill, and her jog had turned into to a pellmell stumble. She would have tumbled head over heels onto the dirt road if Sango hadn’t caught her by the shoulders, swinging her slightly to dissipate the momentum. Soft strands of the girl’s hair touched her cheek before settling down.  

Kagome looked up at her, breathless and grinning. “Thanks.”

Sango found herself smiling, only for the bottom of her stomach to drop out as the shadow of the others descended on them. 

She didn’t look at his face. She _wouldn’t_ look at his face. 

Inuyasha was leading them, of course, arms crossed and glaring daggers at Kagome. Thankfully, he didn’t spare Sango a glance. “Why are you such a klutz?”

“Am not,” Kagome replied swiftly, but her mood was too bright to be affected by the hanyou’s clear bad temper. Shippou, who had chased Kagome down the hills on all fours, jumped to her shoulder and glared at the hanyou. He opened his mouth, fangs bared, but whatever he said was cut off as Miroku took a discrete step between the pair on his way towards Sango of which she was glad.

Until he kept going and took her hand. 

Instinct almost made her jerk away, but Miroku was looking at her with raised eyebrows, a mischievous smile on his face. It was that showman’s face that she normally rolled her eyes at. She hesitated. 

“Sango,” he said warmly, eyes crinkling. His entire body turned to focus on her then, blotting out everything else from her view like a magic trick. The sleight of hand shift in her attention, which she’d so often seen directed at others but never towards her, was so complete that she could only stare in a awe, feeling a little overwhelmed. “It is good to see you again.” 

_This_ was his effect on other girls? No wonder they so often swooned under his attention. 

Sango struggled with a reply but was fortunately distracted by a sudden movement from Inuyasha. He had stepped forward to kick at the monk, who easily side stepped the foot while still holding her hand.

“Yes, Inuyasha?” Miroku asked without looking away. He winked at her covertly, but she could only blink in bemusement

“Can you quit it?” Inuyasha snapped. He had turned his glare on them now, his eyes flickering down to their hands. “If you’d stop accosting every woman we see, we’d have more shards by now.”

Kagome tutted. “Don’t be jealous, Inuyasha,” she tossed carelessly over her shoulder, already turning to Sango, and therefore missed entirely the way the hanyou started, then positively _glowered_ at her. They all missed it. Except Sango.

Flushing, Sango quickly looked away before the hanyou noticed and quickly extricated her hands from Miroku’s grasp. The monk let her with only the a slight rueful twist to his mouth.

Flustered, she found herself reverting to formalities. She gave a curtsy nod. “It is an honor to see you again.”

Miroku smiled but was cut off as Kagome tugged on her arm gently, saying they should move to the inn. Sango followed obediently, eventually finding herself sandwiched between the girl and the monk as they chattered to her about their recent activities, with Shippou piping in from time to time.

She walked in silence, all the while feeling a pair of eyes burning a hole in her back.

                                                                                 

* * *

                   

If she was being entirely honest with herself, she might have expected _something_ from him. Some acknowledgement, however small, that he was furious with her for the running act she had pulled, or even just a little annoyed.

But she got nothing. He didn’t say anything to her beyond a perfunctory, "find any jewel shards?" and after that one time on the way to the inn, she didn’t catch him staring again. Which was good. A great thing.

So she stopped following Kagome around like a woman starved for friendship, tried to quiet her heart pounding in her chest. It had been a mistake, surely. Especially if he didn’t seem to care. So maybe they could just return to whatever they had been before and everything would be fine. She wouldn’t have to keep looking over her shoulder like he was a predator hunting her. 

                                                                             

* * *

                       

Sango was never so lucky. 

He caught her alone in the hallway, late at night as she was coming back from the baths. 

She froze when she saw him slam open a door and step out into the hall in just his white shirt and his hakama, the door shutting behind him with finality. Like he had been _waiting_ for her. His eyes were blistering, furious suns in the dark. "Two fucking days," he hissed, stalking towards her, and now she knew how much trouble she was in, and she was going to go to _hell_ for the way the thought send a bolt of pure, unadulterated need down her spine. It terrified her, the intensity of it. 

Heart in her throat, she turned and sprinted back the way she came. 

She was fast, but he was faster. She had barely slipped out a window and into a garden bed when suddenly he was there in front of her, rising from a crouch and backing her up against the wall of the bathing house, an arm coming up to cage her between his body and the wall. 

She half expected him to just start kissing her, but he didn’t. He didn’t touch her at all, though the heat radiating off of him was such a stark contrast to the cold night breeze that she shivered in her thin yukata, leaning towards him. She was barefoot. He watched her with those predator eyes, like he knew exactly what she was thinking, and it made her want to hide her face. 

"Let me guess," he growled. "You thought that if I wasn’t begging at your feet the moment I saw you that what happened the other day must have been another _dream_ —" the way he said the word was almost like he _knew_. 

She flinched, pressing against the wall. "No, I—I thought…" Her words failed her at the look in his eyes, daring her to lie to him.

"I told you," he said lowly, and she swallowed, "we were not finished."

They stared at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move. And then suddenly he was pulling back, sighing sharply. 

"If you think I’m just going to force you into this," he said, words chilling her, "so that you can pretend like you had no choice" and god that _stung_ , "then you can think again. You have to _choose_ Sango. Or this really will go no where." He pinned her with a dark amber stare, waiting.

She stood there, frozen. After a moment, his lips thinned, disappointment flashing in his eyes and then he was pulling away, his arm dropping at his side. And it was now or never. There would be no going back from this, either way. If she let him walk away now, he would never let her touch him again. 

She sucked in a deep breath, knowing which she preferred, and suddenly the choice was easy. She was already a damned woman anyway, what was she trying to preserve?

"Okay," she whispered, licking her lips, and he froze. Then she was reaching forward, grabbing the lapels of his shirt and drawing him around slowly, pressing _him_ against the bath house wall as she leaned in to him, breathing in the warm scent of him. "You’re right," she breathed, watching his jaw clench. He was still angry with her. "Sorry."

She placed an apologetic open mouthed kissed on his neck. 

He breathed in sharply, hands fisting at his sides, but didn’t move. So she continued a line of tentative, inexpert kisses down his corded neck, kissed the hollow of his collar bone and felt him shiver, and then travelled back up his neck to the other side. She breathed out slowly against his jaw bone, his name.

He breathed out shakily. His hands came up finally to span her waist, his hands large enough that they almost entirely circled her body, and she made a small noise at the touch that she was immediately mortified at. His mouth twitched. And then he was leaning down, one hand raising to sink fingers into her hair, tilting her head back.

He kissed her. 

It was a study of contrasts. There was the warmth of his mouth. The cold touch of his skin against hers. There was the wetness, when his tongue licked the seam of her lips and she opened to him—and the utter bolt of shock at the prick of his canines, of having his tongue, foreign, inside her own mouth, that made her press tighter to him. The smell of him, filling her senses, wood and salt and skin. The taste of something alive and breathing. 

It was potent, encompassing, overwhelming.

It was _not enough._

At some point they had flipped and he was fully pinning her to the wall now by his mouth and the one hand on her waist, but the rest of him was empty cold space. She arched, almost hating herself at the way his mouth curved against hers, but then he was moving forward and she didn’t care—

His chest and hips slotted against hers in one solid, perfect resonance and she broke the kiss as the back of her head hit the wall, her mouth open in a gasp...

And then he…stepped _away_.

The cold air washed over her as effectively as a bucket of water. Her head whipped up, gaping at him as he took another measured step back, breathing harshly. His mouth was still wet until he wiped it against he back of his hand, eyes intently still focused on hers. 

"What," Sango started to say around a pant, almost raising an arm to reach for him before she caught herself. 

"Punishment," he said, voice hoarse. But there was a resolution in his eyes that made any hope that he might come back die a quick death. "For making me wait."

"What? I—"

"You tell me," he continued as if she had said nothing at all, "when you are ready for more."

And then he walked away from her a second time.

                                                                                                 

* * *

   

Later that night, panting wide in the dark after having woken from another dream, she admitted to herself that the shame she felt at feeling this way for Inuyasha was not enough of an excuse anymore. 

Her life was short. It was always going to be short. Making a choice meant she could choose what exactly she was giving up, and that was something until now she’d never had a choice in at all. 

She had her duty. No one would ever take that from her. But maybe she could also have a bit more. 

Even if, like everything else in her life, it would be as fleeting as a dream.

**Day 56**

She got the jump on him this time, cornering him against a tree during one of their night patrols, when the others had retired to their sleeping bags. 

He was still holding back. She could tell in the way that he let her take the lead when they kissed, in the way he would let go of her neck or her waist to clench a fist into the fabric of her skirt. And she was grateful, because she didn’t think she was ready for anything more and both of them knew it. 

They traded stolen warm kisses under the cover of twilight, illuminated only by the tiniest sliver of moonlight in the night sky. 

**Day 58**

The group had stayed the night before at an inn, sketching out plans on scraps of paper in the men’s room and arguing over details until they had all nearly fallen dead on their feet and Sango had had to carry a sleeping Kagome on her back to their futons next door. 

Therefore, it came as a odd surprise to Sango when, instead of immediately heading out early in the morning, they lingered. And then at noon, when Sango was looking twitchily at the door, Miroku announced that they were staying at the inn another night. 

Even Kagome looked surprised. In fact, it looked like the girl was frowning at him and Miroku was studiously ignoring her. Sango blinked, looking around to gauge the others expressions, only to realize that Inuyasha was not in the room. Shippou looked as baffled as she did.

Kagome had crossed her arms, her tone reproachful. "Is this okay?"

Miroku continued drinking his tea. "Everything has been taken care of."

If she hadn’t been looking she would have missed the flash of hurt that crossed Kagome’s face. But what replaced it was even more baffling. Resentment?

The girl stood up abruptly, lip trembling. "Well it must feel great making decisions without having to consult anyone else."

Miroku’s eyes snapped open and his tea cup slamming on the table, making everyone jump. Clearly a nerve had been hit. But any annoyance on Miroku’s face quickly died when he spied Kagome’s face, eyes bright with unshed tears. His mouth fell open, immediately contrite. 

"Kagome—" he began, but the girl whirled around and angrily stormed out of the room. With an alarmed squeak, Shippou jumped from the table and pelted after her, leaving Sango and Miroku alone in the room. Miroku himself was half out his seat, arm outstretched, before he paused, seeming to think better of it, then sank back down. 

She thought maybe he would try to pretend nothing happened and return to his tea. And he did try valiantly, hand picking up his cup and bringing it half way to his face. 

But then he got stuck, staring moodily into its depths, something close to a scowl on his face. 

Sango, who up until this point had been utterly speechless, leaned forward and went to take the cup from him. 

His eyes snapped to hers, defensive, but when she merely looked at him questioningly, he sighed and let her take the cup from him. 

"What was that?" she said after a moment. 

Miroku shifted, his gaze moving to the window. 

She tried again. "Where is she going?"

The tiniest flash of bitterness, so small she could almost convince herself she imagined it. Then he said something that simply made no sense. "Running to Inuyasha, no doubt." He was glaring at his cup of tea now, across the table out of his reach.

Sango stared at him, feeling emotionally whiplashed. What? But the longer she watched him fidget under her gaze, the more she understood that she was seeing more shards of what she had barely glimpsed at, that one night when the monk got drunk. The messy, convoluted tangle that was the relationship between her companions. 

She saw Miroku sigh harshly, then put his head in his hands. And she thought, the burden of leading the people you care for, with no guarantee that you were making the right choices, was always a heavy and thankless one. 

She let him have a moment, before reaching out again to touch his hand gently. When he finally looked up, blinking rapidly at her, she held out a freshly poured cup of tea. Surprised, he took it, and she leaned back. 

"Let me take care of them right now," she said gently, patting his hand. "It doesn’t have to be your responsibility all the time."

She had the painful experience of watching her words reach him in slow motion. She saw the exact moment his face broke, just a little bit, before he bowed his head to hide it. She squeezed his hand, holding it, until she felt him turn his hand over and give a slight squeeze back. She smiled sadly, let go.

Then she got up and let him have his peace. 

                                                                                         

* * *

           

Just as Miroku had predicted, Kagome had gone running to Inuyasha. But from the way he had said it, Sango half expected to find them in some sort of comforting exchange, the hanyou being soft with the girl.

Instead, she walked right into a screaming match. 

Inuyasha was on the ground, struggling to lift his head against some unseen force so he could shout curses at Kagome. The rosary beads around his neck glowed with the tell tale light of subjugation. Kagome was standing over him, her face red and blotchy from tears, blubbering through something that was part incomprehensible because she was crying so hard. 

If that sight alone wasn’t enough to make Sango’s heart drop to her stomach, she found Shippou sitting in the middle of the hall way and curled into a ball, his hands over his ears, trembling and whispering. 

When Sango knelt beside him, putting a hand on her back, he flinched slightly, then continued to mutter to himself over and over. _Make it stop, make it stop._ Sango’s heart clenched. She picked him up, letting him curl his trembling, fragile body into her shoulder, and then furiously marched over to the arguing pair. 

"I don’t fucking need your help," Inuyasha was snarling. The subjugation was wearing off. He had hulled himself to his knees and was glaring balefully at Kagome. Even from where Sango was standing, she saw the girl flinch. 

"I’m—" Kagome was saying, trying to speak over the hiccup in her voice. "I’m just trying to—t-to understand—"

Sneering, Inuyasha opened his mouth to say something that would surely cut Kagome to the bone. Quickly, Sango stepped between them. " _Enough_ ," she shouted, the warning a sharp sound that caused the birds in nearby trees to take flight.

They both flinched at the sound, at the suddenness of her presence. She looked between the two of them, angry, as Shippou quietly whimpered into her shoulder. At the small sound, Inuyasha looked at the kit, then quickly closed his mouth, looking away. 

Kagome was staring at her, gasping in short quick breaths, her expression some twisted mix of abject misery and horror. The sight calmed Sango’s anger somewhat. It was obvious the girl was on the losing end of the argument. Sango turned her back on the hanyou for a moment. 

"Kagome," she said calmly, putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder, "You need to breathe. Deep, slow breathes." She demonstrated and Kagome tried to follow her example, stuttering through it. She nodded. "Good. That’s good. Keep doing that, okay?"

Then she turned to Inuyasha, who had finally stood and was staring stonily at the ground. At her movement, he looked up, defiance flashing in his eyes. 

She stared at him coolly, then "Are you okay?"

He blinked at her, completely thrown by her question, but when she merely waited, he gave a hesitant nod. 

By then, Kagome was breathing slower, only hiccuping occasionally. Sango took her by the arm with her free hand. "Lets go to your room," she said softly. Kagome nodded, rubbing her eyes with the back of a hand. 

Sango leveled Inuyasha a frosty glare over the girls head. He stiffened, immediately defensive.

"You," she said. "I’ll find you later. Don’t go anywhere."

He opened his mouth in a sneer, but then she was turning Kagome away with her, Shippou still curled into her arm, and she didn’t look back as she left him there. 

                                                                                             

* * *

       

Kagome, unsurprisingly, didn’t want to talk about it. She was always been that way when it came to things about Inuyasha. Worse, the girl wouldn’t look Sango in the eye and she felt without really needing to be told that on some level Kagome was both relieved and resentful that Sango was here. Both to bear witness to what had happened and also to pick up the pieces afterwards. 

So she merely tucked Kagome and Shippou into a futon and sat on the edge of the mat until the girl’s hitched breathing slowed, following the kitsune into sleep.  

She stayed a little longer, stroking both of their heads, thinking about Kohaku. 

Kohaku had used to have panic attacks, when he was younger. She’d wake in the night to find him curled tight in a dark corner, clutching his hair in his hands and unable to breathe. She’d learned how to coax him through breathing exercises by example, how to transfer his grip from hurting himself to her own hands. She’d learned that simply rocking with him and humming a little had provided him more comfort than trying to talk him down. He’d never needed to be told what he should do. He’d always tried, desperately, to calm himself down so that no one would wake up. So that he wouldn’t bother anyone. 

For a moment, the tears came, threatening to fall down her cheeks and Sango had to stop, put a hand to her face and will the longing away. The longing to not be here, but to be back in the Taijya village, sharpening her sword and patiently watching Kohaku as he practiced his forms. 

It may as well have been another lifetime. In the meantime, she had the life she was given right now, the people in it who were suffering, and the means, however small, to do something about it. 

When left the room, the afternoon had worn on into evening. She checked in briefly with Miroku, found him busying himself with maps, and they went over any slight changes they would need to make for having lost a day.

When she mentioned Kagome and Inuyasha’s fight, he flinched guiltily, looking away. She had a feeling that it was usually him that broke up the fights, and also a feeling that maybe there were some fights he hadn’t broken up at all. She mulled that thought over, noting how tired he looked as he began to pull out another scroll from a pack. 

She left him to it—who was she to judge a man for chasing down a distraction?

She went searching for Inuyasha. 

He was, surprisingly, still where she’d left him. He stood in the middle of the courtyard, arms crossed, staring down at a spot of upturned earth. The bed of flowers below his feet had been there had been flattened and partially uprooted. It was likely, Sango thought, the spot where Kagome’s subjugation had dragged him down. She looked up with a sense of dread and winced at the swinging of a broken tree branch above them, hanging by a thin strip of bark and looking perilously close to falling at any moment. 

So he’d been in the tree, then, probably refusing to come down and speak with her. Even for a hanyou, that fall had to have hurt. Now that she was looking, she could see faint mottled shadows on his chest and lower face and purple evenly spaced bruises forming on his neck, where the subjugation beads must have dragged him to the ground. She had never seen such bruising before from subjugation, perhaps given that he always healed so quickly. She frowned, wondering why then she could see them now.

His ears flicked back at her at her approach but he didn’t actually turn to her as she stopped a couple feet from him. The was going to set soon, already going partially behind the building. The light cut his body in to stark halves, leaving his lower half in darkness. His silver hair glowed gold. 

She couldn’t tell his mood. And now that she was here, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to say to him. It was easier in a way to sympathize with the others. Miroku and Kagome were complex in recognizable, human ways, and Shippou more than anything was just a child. 

With Inuyasha, it was different. 

He was complicated. Torn between identifies that diametrically opposed each other and unable to really trust either side. She had no idea what that was like, being rejected in every direction, not belonging anywhere or with anyone. She didn’t know how to help him. None of them did. And he seemed to not really want any of them to try. 

"Do you think you could, ah—" she stared, pausing when he turned his head slightly to look at her. The gold of his eyes against the his sunset washed hair made her swallow a moment, before she pointed up. At the tree branch. "—get that down? It might hurt someone."

He didn’t respond for a moment, long enough that she thought he was going to ignore her. But then he looked away, crouched in a fluid motion and jumped up effortlessly fifteen feet into the air.  

It wasn’t fair, she thought, awed despite herself, as she watched him easily grab the branch and then tug with jerk, the wood snapping with a loud crack like a twig at the base where branch met trunk. He dropped quickly to face her, so close that she took a half step back as he landed and the whoosh of his descent made her long unbound hair blow back.

He looked down at her as second, gaze unreadable, the branch still in his hand. Then, with a casual strength that made her mouth fall open, he took the branch which was thicker than her hand, and bent it with a a shriek of wood into half and quarter pieces, which he then dropped unceremoniously on the ground. 

She gaped at him, then looked down at one of the branches and picked it up. She couldn’t fit her hand around the entirety of it. She hefted it. Sure, she could snap this in half with her knee, maybe. But not bend it like blade of grass.

When she looked back up, it was to see him walking away from her. 

She dropped the branch in surprise, hand outstretched "Hey—"

He paused, turning again to look at her with his profile. He met her eyes for half a beat, and then raising an eyebrow, resumed walking in the direction he was going. 

He wasn’t exactly inviting her long. But he wasn’t exactly telling her to go away?

Confused, Sango trailed after him. 

She followed him out of the inn yard, out of the village perimeter. Soon, they left the road and were heading up a steadily steeping incline. He set a hard pace, but never seemed to leave her sight entirely, even when she found herself taking detours over climbs the he seemed to effortlessly clear with a few jumps. She might have been grateful if it didn’t further rub in her face how unfair it all was, the effortlessness with which youkai did everything. 

When she cleared a hill only to find she had lost sight of him and wondered if he’d dragged her out onto this rock in the middle of nowhere only to abandon her, she spied a cave coming out of a cliff edge. She made her way over to it, still panting at the exertion of the climb, and hesitated at the cave entrance. 

She catalogued briefly all the youkai that she knew loved to live in caves, the steeled herself, shaking her head. She highly doubted he would be going into a cave infested with youkai at this time of night. She took a moment to look out at the view, oranges and pinks painting the trees and rivers below. The sun was now almost entirely sinking beyond the horizon. 

She went inside. 

It took her a moment for her eyes to adjust in the dark. And then she jumped back, a hand flying to her chest.

Inuyasha was standing right in front her, hardly a hands length between them. He stood just outside of the last few rays cast from the light of the sunset. 

She hadn’t sensed him at all. His presence seemed oddly muted somehow, and she couldn’t put her finger on exactly why. She scowled, then turned, blinking around at the cave here. 

"So what’s this place?" she asked.

"Nothing." He said shortly. "No where." He turned to look at the cave entrance, then back into the darkness. "A place to hide, I guess." He shrugged.

She contemplated that, wondering if he was baiting her, then decided to take it. "Hide from what?"

In that moment, the light chose to fade, blinking out over the horizon like a put out candle flame. 

It happened. 

It started at the crown at his head, so subtle that she almost thought it had to be a trick of the light— except there wasn’t any. If looked like the shadows peeled of the ceiling and began to drip heavy, inky droplets directly onto him, flattening his hair as it traced fine rivulets down his head that spread and spread until his hair was entirely coated in black. 

But it didn’t stop there. A shadow cast itself over his skin, skating down his face and arms, the pale glow that she hadn’t even realized had been there in the first place fading into ruddy tan, faintly translucent. The ring of bruises on his neck from the subjugation beads became a black, ugly collar, the bruises on his cheek and jaw deepening to a mottled purple. Her eyes traced his muscled arms to his blunt fingered hands, noticing for the first time that they were covered here and there with thin, green veins. 

She stared, uncomprehending, then with a start looked into his eyes and gasped. 

Gone was the gold and amber, the slitted pupils. His irises were a dark black, almost violet in their hue, and his pupils were circular, like hers. Her eyes skimmed to the top of his head. His hair hadn’t flattened. His ears were gone.

Her eyes returned to his, startled. "You are…" she started, then stopped, humbled. _Human._

They stared at each other. Inuyasha, who had waited patiently under her wide-eyed scrutiny, now looked as if he was waiting for something. Waiting for her to respond. But she didn’t know what to say. Her father had mentioned something like this to her before, maybe. Something about cycles, about— 

Sango turned and raced out of the cave. She craned her neck up at the sky already dotted with a sea of stars, searching for one specific light. She didn’t find it. 

There was no moon. Or rather, it was a new moon. 

She heard the dark shadow of him moving to stand at the lip of the cave. When she turned to him, eyes wide, he scoffed and finally answered her earlier question.

"Everyone," he said. Then he turned his back on her, disappearing into the caves depths.


	13. Day 58

**Chapter 13: Day 58**

A few minutes later, she was feeling her way blindly back into the cave, hands stretched out to skim either wall, using her leg to feel out the floor. The going was slow and she knew she looked stupid. She was starting to wonder exactly how far he had wandered down the cave when she quiet literally hooked her foot onto his ankle. One of them, or the both of them, involuntarily jerked her from her feet.

Sango fell right on top of him. On her way down, her elbows banged hard on the wall, then his skull—she heard him curse, hands fumbling for her waist—and then she half pulled down him with her as she hit the ground flat on her back, splashing a puddle of dirty cave water into her hair and knocking the wind right out of her. 

Over and over again, it seemed, they were going to repeat this odd dance of dragging each other to the ground.

They lay there for a second, her wheezing, him oddly silent. 

There was not a lot of light, but by now her eyes had adjusted enough that she could see the outline of things if they were close enough. She blinked at the ceiling, then became aware of the warm puff at her neck and realized that she was gripping his head with both arms to her collarbone, forcing him to bend in half at the waist. 

She let him go abruptly, huffing an apology. There was a moments delay before lifted his head up off her. A cold wet strand of hair touched her cheek. Then he was shaking his head like a wet dog, his hair flying everywhere, including into her mouth. She thought fearfully of the scummy cave water she was partly laying in.

"Quit that," she snapped, already reaching to push his hair away from his and her face, and he stopped. He was silent as she gathered his hair and then kind of shoved it behind his shoulders. 

She didn’t realize he was staring until she looked up and found black violet eyes hovering above her own. She froze, then made to sit up and he leaned back so that she could wrench herself up into a sitting position. She brushed back her own wet hair from her face, wondering if she should pull it back into a tail, carefully avoiding his eyes. 

This had probably been one of the most awkward moments in her life. She couldn’t think of a greater demonstration of her own klutziness. 

"What are you doing?" Inuyasha asked point blank. He sounded more than a little annoyed. Her elbows still smarted a little from where it had met his skull.

She turned to look at him, then stared at the hands in her lap. What was she doing? Good question. 

"After dropping this—" she waved at him vaguely "—on me, were you actually expecting me to just walk away?" she asked a little crossly. Then, before he could confirm or deny, she admitted, "I’m not sure I want to try navigating those cliffs back down in the dark."

Inuyasha grunted. She scratched her head, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

She was not stupid. Miroku, Kagome and him fighting on the night that he turned human? Unlikely coincidence. She wondered if Kagome knew that she knew now. Wondered what exactly they had all been fighting about.

"I assume," she said carefully, "that you _don’t_ want to talk about whatever happened with Kagome?"

She could practically feel his glare cut through the darkness. Sango raised her arms up in surrender, then sighed. Then scooted over to sit against the wall next to Inuyasha, curling her arms around her legs, ignoring the way he leaned away from her. 

They sat in silence for a long time. Eventually, Sango buried her head against her knees, closing her eyes. Stray thoughts popped in her head. 

"So why now?" she eventually mumbled in to her legs. 

"Hmm?" Inuyasha hadn’t moved at all, still staring resolutely at the wall. 

She lifted her head up. "Why tell me about this now?"

He shifted. She saw his profile as he looked up at the ceiling. Then, "Seemed only fair. That you know what you’re getting yourself into it."

She mulled on that, feeling oddly grateful, and then decided he was right in more ways then one. A few restrained kisses hadn’t left much of a physical impression of him in her memory other than that—well, she liked his fangs. Flushing a little, she pushed herself to her knees, turning to him, and reaching out with a hand.

She felt his arm grip her wrist immediately in a hard hold, like he’d been watching her move in the dark. 

"What are you doing?" he said tightly. 

Sango frowned. This was not going to work if he was not going to cooperate. But then she had the thought that maybe it made him really uncomfortable, being around other people in his human form. That this was as new to him as it was to her. So instead, she said slowly, "Inuyasha. I’m not planning on hurting you."

He paused, as if contemplating her words, then let her hand slowly slide from his grip. Taking that as permission, she scooted closer on her knees, moving her body between his legs and then tentatively placing her hands on his knees. She felt rather then saw the way he tensed at the simple contact. Her lips turned down. This was so much harder in the dark, when she couldn’t really see him well, and he couldn’t see her. 

Which meant she would have to ask. "Can I—" she swallowed, then continued. "Can I touch you?"

Silence. She wished she could see his face clearly, but there was nothing but darkness. 

"I’m not a freak show on display," he said finally, warningly. There was deep uneasiness in his voice. 

But it was not a no. 

"I know," she told him solemnly. And then she lifted her hands off his legs and reached slowly forward towards his body. 

Her fingers found his chest first, the fur of his fire rat haori soft beneath her finger tips. She traced the lines of his clothes up his body to more familiar territory, gripping his shoulders so she could pull herself closer still into the cage of his body. She felt one of his hands come up, finally, to meet her waist and steady her, and she sighed a little, grateful. 

She let go of his shoulders, tracing his collarbone with her fingers, feeling the first shiver at her touch and smiling against the darkness. She hoped he couldn’t see that. 

She thought about the ring of bruises on his throat, careful not to touch them too much, though she couldn’t be sure as he was so tense beneath her. 

"You don’t heal very well near this time, do you?" she asked quietly. She remembered a similar moment, a month ago, when she had noticed his injuries after the water god attack weren’t healing as well as they should have been. She felt Inuyasha jump a little at her comment, then grunt, trying to pull away, but she kept her hands firmly in place on his neck, gazing up at him in the dark until he stopped. 

She wondered if the others had realized this, if he had ever told anyone. Surely not. Or Kagome wouldn’t have tried subjugating him today, so high in a tree. Sango’s breath caught. The girl could have accidentally killed him. 

The blistering rage she’d seen in Inuyasha’s face as he yelled at Kagome now took on a whole new meaning. 

She sighed a little, fingers rubbing the back of his neck. "You could have just said something. You always make things so difficult." _For yourself,_ she didn’t say but it went unspoken.

She could practically hear his sneer in the dark. "Why should I?" 

The idea repulsed him. Sharing his weaknesses more then he already had. 

She bit her lip. It wasn’t her place to tell him what to do. And she could understand his feelings too, not wanting to give people more power to control you. So she nodded slowly, seeing the faintest flash of his surprise in the dark, and then she reached up, a thumb brushing against his pulse point, then lightly along the bone of his jaw.

She cupped his face with both hands as gently as she could.

She felt human ears at the tips of her fingers. At the small touch, she felt him flinch in her hold, the hand on her waist tight, and she pulled back immediately. "Sorry," she murmured. "I won’t do that again."

After a moment, he muttered, almost embarrassed, "No. It’s fine. Just not…used to them being there. Feels weird." 

She nodded. But her fingers had moved on, ghosting up the planes of his face, tracing the ridge of his forehead, an eyebrow, the straight curve of his nose. The bruises on his face were warmer then the rest of him, so she avoided those, merely tracing the edges of them. One of her thumbs settled on his lips, feeling the warm puff of his breath against her skin, and she shivered slightly. 

"What are you doing," he asked, his other hand coming up to lightly grab her wrist. He was not pulling her away. She continued to trace his features with her other hand. 

"Memorizing you," she said honestly, and felt his intake of breath along her thumb. But she couldn’t see his expression and after a long moment of silence, her confidence started to falter. Feeling oddly embarrassed, she let her hands drop to his chest, and shifted back, intending to scoot away from him and give him space. 

He tugged at her wrist, stopping her. She paused, and then she felt his hands move along her body, one up her arm, the other up her back. He pressed her lightly to him in the space between her shoulder blades and after only a moments hesitation, she scooted closer and felt his legs close into a loose crosslegged position around her, blocking her exit. She bit her lip.

"What are you doing?" she asked, and then she thought she did see a flash of white against the darkness where his face was. A faint half smile. And then he moved his hands up to her face for his own inspection and she held her breath. 

He traced her features with the calluses of his fingers, so faint that it was like a ghost touching her in the dark. She shivered, feeling incredibly vulnerable as he stroked a finger along her hair line, curling her hair around one of her ears, his knuckle rubbing on the underside of her chin. She tilted her head up. One of his thumbs found the pulse point on her neck, the other her mouth. 

When he slipped his thumb into her mouth, scraping at the line of her teeth and sending sparks of heat down to her toes, she leaned forward on impulse, her teeth biting gently to the knuckle, her tongue curling on the pad of his thumb. His skin tasted earthy, a little salty, not at all unpleasant.  

He hissed a little, the grip on the back of her neck tightening. After a moment she let go of his thumb with an audible pop, looking up at him, feeling him smear a wet, messy trail from the corner of her mouth down her chin. He groaned slightly, then both hands were cupping her jaw and he was guiding her to him.

The kiss was harder than any they’d shared, maybe because he was holding back less. He pulled her sharply towards him and she was crawling into his lap, bracing her hands on his arms as his hands splayed hard on the knife edges of her shoulder blades and she had never felt so consumed before, completely enveloped in the warmth of him, and she wanted _more_.

When they pulled apart to breathe, his hand was in her hair, holding her still as he leaned up to place a kiss on her ear. She shuddered fully against him.

"Can I touch you?" he asked then, voice gravel in her ear, and there was no disguising what he meant. They were long past innocent touches. 

A precipice, a knife’s edge. There was always some chasm she had to cross to get to him and he always made her _choose_. 

She nodded mutely, and she felt the curve of his mouth against her hairline. 

He touched her, just touched her, exploring her in the full darkness, and while they didn’t go further than that, it was more than enough. He traced her body reverently in ways she had never, ever been touched, making her shudder and gasp and suddenly crest—stars bursting behind her eyelids as she bit at the flesh between his neck and shoulder, hard, long before the actual stars in the night sky faded and the sun started to rise on the horizon. 

**Day 59**

The only reminder of the night before was a yellow, fading bruise like a bite mark on Inuyasha’s shoulder, her robe with dirty water marks on the back and sleeves, and her own burning memories. 

Sango left in the morning, shaking, knowing deep in her bones that something had changed again, spinning out of her control. She wondered with a sense of foreboding what exactly she had done. 

**Day 61**

Life waits for no one.

She and Kirara were flying low in the trees when a human scream rent the air. They immediately turned in the direction. It wasn’t long before they circled in the air, arrowing down towards the carnage of an in-progress assault on a trader caravan. 

It was human raiders. 

Bloody smears of corpses littered the road, but there were also several dozens of humans scrambling behind either of the two downed wagons. One wagon had its wheels lodged deep in a muddy ditch, its hull peppered with arrows. Another wagon, otherwise upright, was completely lit on fire, the horses still attached to its leads shrieking and bucking at the blaze. Tracks in the road suggested that the rest of the caravan had sped away, abandoning these two here to the mercy of the raiders. Of which there would be none. 

When Sango rolled off Kirara’s back and dropped down into the clearing, she could see the blanched face of a woman huddling behind the wagon in the ditch, clutching a young boy and girl to her chest. She looked to be trying to shield their faces from the battle. Sango’s eyes locked briefly with the woman’s—full of abject fear and horror and also resignation at what was to come—and the strap of Hiraikotsu creaked in her fist. 

Sango turned burning eyes to the almost dozen bandits, watching grimly as one finished gutting a last caravan guard. He pulled the blade free with a gut wrenching jerk, watching the man convulse and the die in his grip, and then wiped his blade on the man’s tunic sleeve before dropping him into the dirt.

There was no one left to fight, other than Sango. 

Ten pairs of bandit eyes studied her, some dismissive, some wary. One man looked confusedly at Hiraikotsu, which she was holding at her side. More than she’d care to count looked hungry. 

Then Kirara landed beside her with a powerful thud, an ear-splitting roar that thundered through the clearing. 

The band splintered along the expected lines. Three bandits take one look at Kirara and began to flee, while the remaining, still high on blood lust, settled their hands on their weapons and stepped forward. 

Sango gripped Hiraikotsu, her other hand going to the blade at her hip. She didn’t like to use the bone boomerang against humans. It was a weapon crafted specifically to protect people, not to take their lives. And yet the look on that woman’s face—

A trill of alien howls filled the sky, making everyone freeze. Sango’s blood ran cold. On the heels of the sound came a shaking of the forest in the distance, and then suddenly four coyote demons were bursting onto the road. 

They were not tall, but they didn’t need to be—every point on their lean bodies was a polished weapon. Red spiked fur bristled in the sun, revealing blood red gleaming eyes, a mouthful of sharp, sharp black teeth, and clawed hands like a handful of swords.

Sango cursed her luck. She knew these types of demons. Scavengers of battlefields, the kind that came to slaughter what ever remained, winner and loser and victim alike. Even for the taijya, they were formidable. The bandits had let the carnage go on too long and the scent of blood must have carried for miles.

One demon landed near a retreating bandit and before anyone could blink, pounced on the man, its large mouth ripping a chunk out of his chest. The man’s blood-curdling scream was cut off in an arc of blood and flesh.

No time to think. Sango grabbed the top strap of Hiraikotsu, dropped into a crouch, twisting, her back straining, and then with a half shout, propelled the boomerang in a wide path down the road. 

Four bandits were immediately sheared down by her weapon, fountains of blood erupting as Hiraikotsu cut through them like butter. Her chest panged. 

Unfortunately, the time it took to mow down half of the bandits was enough to lose the element of surprise against the demons. The two coyote demons in the weapon’s path jumped nimbly aside, letting Hiraikotsu pass harmlessly between them as it arced up and away on its return trajectory. It would return to her in seven seconds. But she didn’t have time to wait for it to come back. 

One of the coyote’s had turned its beady eyes on her. It moved—what she was seeing, she knew, was actually an afterimage burned in her retina from its burst of speed, but Sango didn’t need to see it to know it was coming for her. 

She dropped, unsheathing her sword in the same motion as she pulled a smoke bomb from her back. Her blade was not even at the apex of its swing before it hit first against nothing, then the creature’s clawed hand as her sight caught up with it, metal sparking on black claws. Then another afterimage, its free arm swinging at her body.

A horrible rip and a searing arc rocked her side, tearing a cry from her mouth. But that was okay. Now that it was this close, image and afterimage blurred together. She already knew that when its head came into view, blood frothing on its nose, that the image she saw was the real thing.

She thrust her arm into its open jaws and triggered the bomb. 

An explosion of black smoke burst from every orifice of the creature. It pulled back shrieking, eyes rolling white in the back of its head, its jaws convulsing—its teeth caught her a little before she could fully escape, white hot pain cutting across the exposed joints her armor couldn’t protect—but then she wrenched her arm completely free. Using the resistance of her blade against its claws, she pushed back and reversed her swing, whirling in the other direction. 

Her blade sliced the creature’s head clean off. 

The headless body swayed, the thunk of its skull reverberating at her feet, but she was already pushing off into a roll towards the ditch in the road. Just barely in time. Three claws glanced off her hairline, leaving white hot pain along her skin as she barely missed the swing of the second coyote, who had simply batted away the corpse of its brethren like a sack of flour. 

Time slowed for a brief second. She was in mid-roll, still in the air, her head tucked forward and eyes darting back to meet the creatures from across the empty space between them. She knew with the painful clarity of someone who could do nothing that the creature had clear aim at her exposed back. An afterimage flashed before her—the creature’s arm raised. 

But then Hiraikotsu slammed into the creature, taking it from her sight. A spark of disbelief filled her, sheer joy—that had _worked_. But there was no time to think. She landed on her feet and then pushed off, unravelling the cord of a grappling hook at her belt mid-run, watching with careful calculation as Hiraikotsu carried the creature, howling, into a nearby tree.

She just had to get there there in _time_. 

The creature sunk deep into the tree, blood spurting from where Hiraikotsu pinned it. At the same moment, Sango threw the end of her grappling hook forward and jumped feet first into a slide, reaching with her free hand. Her hand just barely wrapped around one of the free low hanging straps of Hiraikotsu as the coyote howled in pain, planted its hands on the heavy bone of the boomerang, and _threw_ it away from him. 

The push sent Sango flying into the air, but she was waiting for it. The grappling hook she had thrown, wrapped tight around a nearby tree, pulled taught and yanking her where it was secured at her belt. She jerked to a halt in the air, being pulled apart on two ends by the force of the creatures throw and her tether to the earth, the hot bloody mess at her side unravelling like a spool of thread and a raw scream ripping from her throat. 

For a second she thought she heard another voice, Kagome, screaming her name. 

But Sango’s was as much a scream of defiance as a scream of pain. With a shriek of muscle, she _pulled_ Hiraikotsu, using the tree roped by her grappling hook as a counter balance, and the weapon veered to the left and then around her, still carrying it deadly momentum. 

It thunked straight into the demon head, cracking the skull upon like a ripe watermelon and embedding deep into the wood. 

Sango dropped hard on her wounded side, stars exploding behind her eyes. She gasped, her vision swimming, writhing and twisting her body to the side. Over the high buzzing in her ears, she thought she could hear fighting, what sounded like the twang of a bow, the concussion of a small whirlwind. Something like relief filled her chest. 

It was short-lived.

Suddenly, a hissing sound filled the air. It was as if the roots of the trees were slithering forward, ensnaring her, wrapping around her legs and arms and then curling around her neck to press her head hard to the ground. She struggled, feeling a root jerk her head even harder so her neck was exposed. She cursed herself for her moment of weakness. She was clumsy and foolish, and—she froze. A steady sound finally registered in her head. Footsteps. 

They stopped behind her. Something white flashed from the corner of her eyes as the person crouched down.

A soft, low clap. 

"That was glorious," said a familiar voice. "You never cease to amaze me, you know. To think that this is what human’s are capable of." A touch, delicate, against her hair. The voice was almost proud. "There is almost no one quite like you."

Sango jerked in the grip of the roots, eyes wide, all the color draining from her face. No. No no _no_. 

Cold fingers touched her neck. They were soft, uncallused. Exploring. They lingered on the scar on her check, then buried themselves deeply into the hair at the nape of her neck.

"And what is this?" he whispered, almost to himself. "Another scar? By whom?"

The hand in her hair clenched tight, pain sparking on her scalp, eliciting a sharp gasp from her. She struggled to turn her head, to look at him, but the root over her forehead ground her cheek deeper into the earth. 

"You’ve chosen some interesting companions," he continued, musing. His grip lessened. He was petting her now, soothing the hurt. "It’s almost flattering, to be the reason that you all found each other. Makes it most convenient to find all of you when I need you."

There was a faint laugh, so familiar it felt like a stab in her chest. He leaned down, a long black strand of hair falling into her vision, and whispered in her ear. 

"The time your little ragtag group has together is coming to an end. Not yet. But soon. Until then, don’t forget little fool."

_You are mine._

He disappeared like the wind, the roots sinking into the earth. But the paralysis, even when she had the power to get up, lasted long after he was gone. 

                                                                                                   

* * *

 

The others had found her and Kirara just in time. Time enough to stop the two remaining coyotes from picking apart most of the terrified caravaners. 

But the bandits had been shredded to pieces. And the woman—

Sango, her side already bandaged and a blanket over her shoulders, had to turn away from the two children crying pitifully into the dress of the woman’s corpse, prostrate in the dirt, it’s two pieces put respectfully back together. 

Sightless eyes gazing up at the sky haunted her for the rest of the night as the group travelled under cover of darkness, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and the massacre site. 

**Day 62**

She almost didn’t tell them. Almost. 

But it was Inuyasha who had found her, still lying on the ground after _he_ had left. It was Inuyasha who had picked her up gently like she would break, who didn’t ask her what had happened, even when she had told him with urgency that they needed to get as far away as possible. 

Not because he didn’t want to. She could see it, the way he ground his teeth every time their eyes met. He was always the first to look away. 

And she was reminded, oddly, of that moment at the bath house, when he gave her a choice. And his words, in a dark cave. _Seemed only fair. That you know what you’re getting yourself into it._

He had a choice too.

"Naraku was there," she said quietly, in the middle of an awkward dinner. Someone dropped their rice bowl with a clatter and it careened across the table, spilling food everywhere. Immediately, both Miroku and Kagome scrambled to reach it before it fell off the table. It was Shippou who stopped it by jumping on it entirely, wobbling on the back of it as as the bowl settled upside down with a clatter. 

Sango looked at the kitsune, blinking in bewilderment, and then found that all of them had turned to stare at her. Kagome, half stretched on the table. Miroku, half out of his seat. And Inuyasha, leapt up to a complete stand where he had been sitting against the wall. 

Her voice failed her. She didn’t know where to start. 

Miroku cleared his throat, leaning back. "When?"

The direct question made her relax. Logistics were easy. She cleared her throat. "Right after I killed the second coyote. He snuck up behind me."

She briefly described to them the encounter, what he had said to her. Or most of it. She left out the beginning and the very last thing he had said. 

Miroku had his chin on his hand, contemplating the ceiling. "So he knows we are together," he muttered, his eyes steeling over to look at, oddly, the hanyou. "That he can find us so easily...this is troubling—"

He was cut off suddenly by Inuyasha, who as always cut straight to the thing Sango didn’t say. "But why you?" 

A bald of dread descended into the bit of her stomach. She looked up, caught Inuyasha’s eyes on her, and then immediately looked away at the intensity of his gaze. 

His voice was oddly calm. If she didn’t know better it was almost…pleading."Why did he show himself to you?"

A moment of truth, then. If she could not trust them now, she could never. And neither could they trust her. She took a breath. 

"When I first met him," she said slowly, not looking at any of them, "he was Kagewaki. Only Kagewaki. And we…" She paused and looked at her hands, feeling only misery. "…might have been something more than enemies." 

Silence. Then there was a loud bang, the slam of a screen door. Sango flinched. When she looked up, eyes wide, it was to see Inuyasha’s back as he left the room. 

                                                                                   

* * *

                 

"He’ll get over it," Kagome told her later, surprising Sango from her reverie. They were sitting on the porch outside the eating area, staring out into the garden. Shippou was busying himself inspecting the bugs on the leaves. Kagome was swinging her legs absently, watching the kitsune fondly. 

Sango contemplated denying that she actually cared what Inuyasha thought of her. 

But it would be a bald faced lie. She merely sighed, absently rubbing her aching arm, then her aching side. She was lucky that both cuts had been glancing blows. More scars to collect, she supposed. 

"Will he?" she asked instead, hating how vulnerable it made her feel. 

Kagome threw a curious glance at her but then shrugged. "He knows," she said simply. "Better than any of us. He knows exactly what it means to be tricked by Naraku’s disguises. It happened to him too, in a way."

At Sango’s questioning look, Kagome shrugged. "That’s all I can really say. The rest is his to tell."

Sango had a fleeting sense of deja-vu. They’d had a similar conversation, what felt like ages ago, when they were washing clothes at the river. The day she’d learned Inuyasha had had a lover. At the time, Sango had only scoffed, unconvinced that that was possible. Now, she nodded slowly, looking down. 

They sat in comfortable silence until eventually Sango started to doze off. She was startled awake when Kagome bumped shoulders with her. When Sango looked down, bleary eyed, to see the girl’s impish smile, she felt a warm feeling in her chest and realized it was the first time that she was reminded of Kohaku without feeling a twinge of pain. 

"You should go to bed," Kagome was saying. "The room is two halls from here—a right, then a left. First door on the right. I’ll stay up with Shippou for a little while." 

Sango made to sleepily protest, but when the girl merely shooed at her, she sighed and gave in. Blearily, she got to her feet, feeling exhaustion seated deep in her bones, and shuffled in the direction that Kagome pointed. 

Not unexpectedly, she got lost. She wandered down several hall ways for awhile, so sleepy and complacent that she might have just continued shuffling down the halls all night, or maybe just leaned against a random wall and fallen asleep right there. But then reason pricked at her subconscious and she yawned, turning out of another series of halls towards the outside. She would walk the building perimeter til she found their room.

She was so tired that she almost didn’t realize that there were people talking outside. But she did stop short when the voice she heard lecturing around the corner becoming distinctly recognizable as Miroku’s voice. She blinked, turning her head. The lanterns that hung on the perimeter of the porch illuminated the outside walk way through the screen walls. She could see Miroku’s figure, the tell-tale shape of his staff leaning against his chest. He was looking down at someone sitting on the edge of the porch, the shape of a katana protruding from a shoulder. 

Sango froze. Three guesses to who that was. 

"It’s not her fault," Miroku was pointing out. Sango stiffened instantly, sleepiness evaporating from her. The monk continued, "We both know how Naraku is. She couldn’t have known, anymore than we could have. This situation is not her fault."

 A pause. Then, "I know." Inuyasha said lowly. She didn’t know how to read his tone. "I didn’t say it was her fault." 

"Well, you’re sure doing a good job of making her feel like it is." 

A grunt of a response. Then, nothing. 

Miroku sighed, a frustrated sound. "You are so difficult." But he didn’t turn to walk away. Instead, he seemed to slump, the staff jingling softly. He leaned against the nearest building column, looking to the outside grounds. 

The silence between the two men was not exactly companionable, but somehow intimate enough that Sango felt like a horrible intruder. She was about to take a careful step back in the direction she’d come when suddenly, Miroku spoke again. 

"Be honest with me…what is actually bothering you?"

For a moment, Sango thought Inuyasha was not going to respond. But then, surprisingly, she saw his silhouette straighten from his position and turn to look at the monk. The faint shadow of his ears moved and for one, heart stopping moment, she thought one flicked in her direction. 

"It’s nothing. Just—" He barked an ugly laugh. "Just a reminder that there is literally nothing that bastard can’t take away from—" he cut himself short, another harsh laugh. 

Miroku didn’t push him to elaborate. 

But he didn’t have to.

Sango was left reeling, struggling to breathe around the back of her hand pressed tight to her mouth. She backed away slowly, wide-eyed.

Maybe Inuyasha had been going to say _someone._

Maybe he’d been going to say _me._

**Day 64**

He had a choice, just like she did. And when he wouldn’t look her in the eye at all the next two days, Sango felt the door on this part of her life shut with a sense of finality that made her close her eyes and almost wish she’d never agreed to it from the start. 

It was over. And she accepted it, because it was only fair. 

She could survive this, the loss of the still infant thing between them. It had been just under two weeks, impossible as that seemed, thesir stolen moments even less. They hadn’t had long, but it had been sweet and she was still grateful. 

So she ran away again, that very night, quietly packing her bag and slipping out the door with Kirara on her heels. Because that was what she was good at. Surviving. 

**Day 66**

She got careless. One little slip up. 

The demon with the lavender hair found her. 

 


	14. Day 66

**Chapter 14: Day 66**

"—Are you all right, _onee-san_?"

Sango started, looked up from the patterns she was tracing in the road. A small girl stood in front of her, twisting the hem of her coarse dress in her hands. There wasn’t a speck of her that wasn’t smudged with dirt, although she was so darkly suntanned it was hard to tell. Brown eyes peered at her curiously. 

_Onee-san_. Sister. 

The girl was just being polite but Sango stared back at a loss for words. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been called that.

When the girl shifted awkwardly, Sango let out the breath she’d been holding, realizing that she was being excessively rude. 

"I’m all right," she said after a moment, trying for a polite smile. The girl looked skeptical, but then shrugged and skipped away, trailing after her parents who had walked on without noticing in deep conversation. Sango watched her go, a belated flash of unease washing over her as she realized she hadn’t even heard the girl approach. Gods, she was tired.  

"Onee-san", she muttered. The part that had thrown her, the ironic part, was that Kohaku had never called her that when they were growing up—always using the formal _Ane-ue._ Or at least not since he was a baby and hardly able to walk, back in a time when their family had just been the three of them. Before her father had become leader of the village and their places in society—and to each other—had changed. 

Sango sighed, hiding her head in her arms.

She was sitting on the side of the road, Hiraikotsu supporting her weight. Kirara had needed a break from flying, and so they’d sat near a busy crossroad and ate strips of salted jerky and dried fruits—a staple in any Taijya’s travel kit. Kirara had wandered off in her small form to chase insects and Sango had been too tired to call her back, just staring at the people that passed by and trying to work herself up to go down to the nearby village and ask about the latest news. 

She had not slept well last night, or the night before. Part of it was that she was anxious of dreaming, afraid of what she might see. But the pragmatic side of her _wanted_ to sleep. She didn’t want to think about her problems: Naraku, the shikon jewel… the group. What they were doing. What Inuyasha had thought. How easy it had been to leave, to slip away—they must have thought nothing of it. They expected her to, after all. 

And yet every time she would close her eyes determined to go to sleep, the eyes of the dead woman from the caravan haunted her. Sightless, blood seeping from the corner of her eye. She had died in pure terror, not knowing if the children she was protecting would survive. A reminder of fragility, futility. A reminder that she was running out of time.

Sango opened her eyes and stood, arms dropping limply at her sides. After a moment, she hefted Hiraikotsu on her shoulder and put her fingers to her mouth. The whistle was high, short, and brief. Kirara would know what it meant— _I’m going ahead._

She merged with the traffic of the road, doing her best to listen to the chatter of the people close by as they talked about the happenings in their lives. Mostly it was things that were irrelevant to her—the weather, the yield of the crops, the drama going on between the house wives, the fights that broke out between the men. But occasionally there were mentions of youkai attacks or incidents where people started acting strangely. These she took mental note of as she went about the morning scouting out the market and restocking her supplies. 

She was in the middle of talking to a young man at a food stand asking about when the last caravan had passed by when she saw a flash of dark hair and green out of the corner of her eye. 

"…shorted me a whole cask of rice mead," the man was grumbling, "we’ll see if they ever step foot in—"

She whipped her head around immediately, tiredness evaporating. Her heart pounded. But there was nothing, just a boy and a girl playing with pebbles on the side of the road, a mother watching them from the stoop of her hut. 

"I’ll skin them alive the—uh, Ma’am?" 

She was already striding swiftly away from the booth, moving deeper into the village center as she scanned around. She ducked between a pair of maidens carrying water basins on their shoulders, dodged a gaggle of screaming children, nearly collided with an old man pulling a bull down the street. The village square was bustling and she recognized no one. 

After apologizing to the old man, who only gave her a disgruntled huff and stalked off with his ox, Sango took a deep breath and tried to will herself to relax. It had been nothing. The girl from her earlier had thrown her off. The exhaustion was getting to her. She rubbed her aching temples. She needed to _sleep_.

She turned back to the market street, wondering which direction the nearest inn was and exactly how much it would cut into her thinning coin purse...

…and she saw a _ghost_. 

He was standing to the side near one of the street vendors, inspecting their wares. He was wearing a green threadbare yukata on top of a black body suit and in his arms he carried a basket of plums and a wrapped package of meat. He wore no armor, but there was no mistaking the heavy metal chain that encircled his waist, disappearing into the folds of his robes. She didn’t have to see the tell tale bulge under his shoulder blades to know it was a _kusarigama_ , a chain sickle. 

She blinked suddenly wet eyes, but he didn’t disappear. Her mouth worked but no sound came out. She took a step towards him and the boy, as if sensing her gaze, turned sharply in her direction. His brown eyes met hers. 

He looked the same. 

But there were also little changes. His bangs were too long again—he always let them get to long if she didn’t cut them herself. A strip of peeling freckled skin crossed his nose and cheeks, where he’d always burned so easily. He had dirt scuffs on his boots and the robe he wore on top of his Taijya suit looked a little frayed—father would have been annoyed to see it. But otherwise, he looked just as she had seen him when they left the Taijya village on his first hunt. 

Not like when she had _last_ seen him, looking up at her with blood on his lips, tears trickling down his eyes as he died in her arms. 

There was a ringing in her ears, a numbness creeping up her face. His name tumbled from her lips, " _Kohaku_."

She reached out an arm to him. 

Someone bumped into her, jarring her shoulder, a mumble at her from a distance. Her eyes flashed to the person who had reached to steady her, then back to the boy who looked like her dead brother. 

She saw the back of a green yukata disappearing between two stalls and her heart plummeted to her feet. 

" _Kohaku_!" she shouted, panic spiking through her, and she broke into a run, tearing out of the person’s grip and skidding to the spot he disappeared. He was gone. She looked down the alley into the dark woods, hesitating only a moment, then took a deep, gasping breath. 

She put two fingers to her teeth and shrilled three piercing whistles that echoed like cannon shots through the morning air. The people near her jumped, the birds in the nearby trees shrieking and and taking flight. 

She only barely heard Kirara’s answering roar in the distance before she was sprinting through the tangle of branches and tree trunks, Hiraikotsu tight against her shoulder as it banged off things in her path. Her vision tunneled to focus only on the signs of someone’s flight—footprints, a broken twig, a bent branch, a trampled bush. 

She ran until her lungs burned, the sounds of the village fading into the silence of a deep wood. It could have been seconds, it could have been hours. At last, she spied a flash of a figure through the gaps in the trees, and she pivoted on her heel, dashing forward.

The forest opened into a cliffside. She burst out onto the ledge, gasping for breath, her brother’s name on her lips…then looked up.

Her heart stopped. 

It wasn’t Kohaku. 

The lavender-haired demon from the canyon was turned away from her—disembowling a deer with his bare hands—when she’d burst through the trees. It paused, head cocked, and laid the carcass on the ground carefully. Then it straightened to its full height, hands covered in gore. 

The creature was easily four meters tall now, more than twice her height, its skin a dusty purple and its eyes yellow slits. It still looked reptilian, but unlike before, it had a human-like bulbous nose and huge ears that seemed autonomous as the demon tilted its head down at her. It’s long arms could reach across the space between them in less then a second and crush her in its grip. From this close, she could see that its eyes were too close together, its mouth too wide with too many sharp teeth. 

Her eyes snapped down. But it had five fingers. _Five fingers._ Cold fear rose in her throat.

_"_ Hello," it said, in a throat that shouldn’t have vocal cords. It’s voice was surprisingly high pitched, like a large child. 

Sango took a sharp step back, trying to put distance between them. It was pointless. Her father had always warned her. The more human a youkai looked, the more evolved. The more _powerful_. 

But there was something wrong with this one. There always had been. She just hadn’t realized what it was until this moment. 

"Hellooo?" it said again. Confusion wrinkled its expression.

This one wasn’t evolving. It’s physical body had far outpaced its maturity. That could only mean one thing. 

It had been _created_. 

When it took a lumbering step toward her, she ducked into a crouch immediately, a hand going to her blade. To her shock, the demon’s face fell at her movement. "What are you doing?" Its lips trembled piteously. "Why no answer me? Why little people always run?"

Silence.

His face twisted in sudden fury.

"Why aren’t _you being nice!"_ it screamed, cords of muscle bunching in its neck, spittle flying at her. She flinched, trying not to make sudden moves. Horror in her gut. 

"I am sorry," she said, still edging away, a lump in her throat. 

The demon’s face then smoothed into something calm, and somehow that was even more terrifying. 

"I can make you," it said in a loud whisper. "I am stronger now. Father made me stronger now." She watched its eyes suddenly shift, then fill with a fanatical resolve. 

" _Taijya_ ," it whispered in awe. 

Then an afterimage, an arm raising. Sango pulled Hiraikotsu in front of her to shield her body, bracing against the bone weapon.

The creature struck her with the force of an avalanche. 

There was a terrific crack, bone splinters flying everywhere, then a punch against her whole body that exploded white hot and she was flying into open air. She screamed between her teeth. There was a loud roar nearby but it was too far away and then she was falling and through the fragments of Hiraikotsu—she could see the jagged edges of the top, now gone—she spied a flicker of a purple shadow jumping towards her with extended claws, it’s eyes glowing in victory.

Sango stared into the face of death, helpless.

Then Kirara’s jaws clamped hard on her chest, teeth sinking into the hollow beneath her collar bone and under her shoulder blade, and she was _jerked_ by the flesh out of the creature’s grasp.

Sango cried out, blood splattering in arcs, her free hand clamping on Kirara’s wet muzzle. She could feel the mournful cry coming from the cat demon in her bones as they sped towards to the ground, a bare canyon floor.

They were almost there when the demon fell upon them. 

An afterimage flickered in Sango’s periphery. Sango gave a warning shout, then nearly blacked out from the pain as Kirara twisted and twined mid air. But it wasn’t enough. The demon gripped one of Kirara’s tails and then they were being spun. Desperate, Kirara’s teeth clamped tight, hitting bone, the sharp snap of a rib in Sango’s lower chest—but the cat demon wasn’t strong enough, and they flew apart in an arc of blood. 

Sango hit the ground, instinctively tucking in her limbs, rocks and debris ripping at her clothes and lacerating her back. She came to a stop on bare dirt, blood pooling from her punctured wounds and smearing everything. She struggled to lift herself with shaking, slippery limbs. 

She looked up just in time to see Kirara hit a rock wall with a sickening thunk, shattering the stone beneath it. A high pitch animal scream, then nothing as Kirara’s eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped against the wall. She did not stir.

The creature dropped to the ground in a plume of dust, eyes glowing red through the particle debris. It’s eyes were fixed on Kirara’s prostrate form as it took a step closer.

Fury and fear poured through Sango’s beaten body. 

"Get the _fuck_ away from her," she screamed, her neck muscles seizing. The creature turned its head to her, watching with interest as she wrenched herself to her feet, a hand on her bleeding chest. 

Hiraikotsu was somewhere long gone. Her chain belt with her blade and her grappling hook lay where it had tumbled off during her hard fall, equidistant between her and her opponent. The small pouch of smoke bombs she carried on her still hung from her waist, but they were mostly for stunning small youkai. The pack of gun powder she used for larger exterminations was, of course, in her pack at the inn. She hadn’t planned on any of this.  

Sango reached for a tear in her left sleeve and ripped the fabric off, pulling free the curved blade she normally kept strapped to her skin. Then she did the same to her right calf, wrenching a long dagger free from a leather tie. She flipped both blades in her hands, shifting into a fighting stance. 

She was aware of the pulse of her blood trickling down her chest and back, the way her arms trembled as she held up the blades. She took a deep steadying breath, then pulled her taijya mask on her face.

"Come and get it," she said through a raw throat, but the demon heard her. It’s eyes widened, delighted, and it gave a loud howl. 

It charged her.                                                                                           

* * *

She would never forget:

The creature, toying with her. The way she screamed through her teeth every time one of her bones cracked beneath its blows, the way it drew back and cocked its head at her as if absorbing a scenario of cause and effect. 

The way she learned that smoke bombs could only buy her so much precious time. 

Then, the mad scramble, fleeing deep into a cave barely the size of her body, fear driving her beyond claustrophobia. Squeezing and contorting past rocks and sharp edges, the sound of stone shattering behind her as she was pursued and hunted. Dripping blood, stumbling, being cornered at a cliff edge, the drop fathomless and dark below, the creature reaching for her with its bloody claws and furious eyes. 

Wrenching, kicking, throwing her weight. 

Falling. The creature shouting in surprise and her screaming back at it, her scrabbling for purchase in the air, plunging her last dagger, broken in half but still sharp, in to the thick hide of its neck over and over and over and over—   

* * *

_Drip. Drip. Thump_. _Drip. Drip. Thump._

_Thump. Drip. Thump._

There was a concussive force in her ear, hardly audible through the throbbing of her skull. She couldn’t lift her head beyond the pool of blood in the dirt, watching it ripple with each footstep. 

Someone was crouched over her. She stared at a pair of black boots trimmed in white leather. She could have drawn them in her sleep. There was the faded white tassle that wound around the boot and its wolf tooth fastener, the tip chipped and yellowed. 

This must be the afterlife, she thought. 

"You’ve let yourself go soft," the person said, the disappointment so palpable and so familiar that tears sprung to her one weeping eye, the other swollen shut. 

She tried to apologize but could only wheeze, bubbles of blood dripping down her nose and lips. There was a sigh and then a warm hand in her hair, brushing back the bangs from her face, and though her mind swam dizzily, she felt herself struggling closer, babbling.

"What’s wrong with her?" a new voice said, a boy. He sounded afraid. Sango jerked, gurgling, but the person above her only shushed her gently.

"She is dying," he said to the boy. "But do not worry. It is not her time." She felt him turn to her, could feel the smile on his lips even in the dark. A star, rare and bright. "It is good to see you again, Sango."

**Day 67**

A cold prickle in her back. The only thing she could feel. All sensation—pain, pleasure, fear—drawn from her body like a whirlpool tide, sucked into the center of the dark slender shard in her back. And slowly, like the creep of ice into her veins, the dark crackling energy that sunk into her limbs.

Some distant part of her remembered this. The push and pull of energies as her body chased death with life—at a price. To feed on this source, one also became like the food. And to use the jewel at death’s door was always the greatest risk. The jewel could sustain the body, could feed on stimulation—but it wanted, craved the soul. To deny it, one needed to draw a line in the sand. _This is you. This is me._

The more one drew from the jewel, the less clear this distinction became. 

Sango slept. She dreamed of being submerged in a deep pool. From her back bloomed a flower with petals as black as night. They weaved and bobbed around her as she floated in the silence, rooted deep within her flesh. 

She would never get them out. 

**Day 69**

As if from far away, voices talking:

"It is time to take it out."

"She is not over the worst of her injuries, my lord. She could die."

"She will be bound to it _forever_ if it is not removed." The voice was sharp. "And then she will share the fate of her people. Is that what you wish for her?"

Silence. Then, almost reassuring, he continued, "She has already lasted for longer than either of us expected. You should have more faith in your own."

"…She is only human." 

A long pause. "Do you mean to say she is weak," the voice said slowly, "Or are you trying to imply that I am forgetting myself?"

The sound of armor hinges squeaking, a person kneeling. "Of course not, my lord."

"Good. Fetch the boy. I have work for you both." 

The sound of armor clinking, then footsteps fading in the distance. 

Someone’s hair brushing her face as they leaned down, breath ghosting her ear.

"You are a problem," the voice said, gentle. "I had been cultivating that asset for a long time. He was not meant for you, at least not you alone. I don’t know how you found him, but you should not have survived and you most certainly should not have killed him."

He ran a knuckle against her cheek, then murmured, a hint of regret, "I am almost starting to expect the impossible from you."

Silence, for a long time. Then, eventually, he sighed. "I did say it was time. You may not believe me, but I assure you, I am not going to enjoy this."

As if from a distance, she felt strong hands turn her body to her side. Knuckles brushing the bare skin of her arm, her back. A finger on the pulse in her spine.

"Mostly," he murmured into her hair.

He plucked the shard—

The pool turned into a sea of _fire._ The darkness shriveled and the voice and the touch disappeared, leaving her to thrash alone, screaming, flame rushing down her throat—

_Burn, burn, BURN, BURN, BURN—_

**Day 71**

_—BURN!_

Sango snapped open her eyes, trying to wrench to her feet. It was dark, dark as the cave, dark as the fall, endless. The taste of blood in her mouth was still there. It was not over. She had to kill it, she had to—

The figure of a young boy appeared in her periphery, haloed by candle light. She didn’t have time to process more before there was a shout, and then shadows rushed into the room, reaching for her. Sango drew back immediately, a hiss and shout tearing from her throat as she thrashed against the hands, punching and kicking into flesh and bone.

They were trying to drag her deeper into the dark. She would _not_ go back, she would _never_ _go back—_

" _Ane-ue_!" The boy, arm out stretched towards her, the candle illuminating a sheen of tears. "Stop!"

She froze. Then an arm wrapped around her neck, closing off her windpipe, and she grappled with the arm, stars dancing in her eyes—

**Day 72**

Fever set into her skin, deep in her brain. She lay on a sheet, the every rattle of her breath a fight to the death. The boy put a cold cloth on her head, his small hands gentle on her skin.

The only thing she remembered, the only thing that drew her again and again from the black depths, was the song he hummed her through out the night, the one from her childhood that chased the demons away.

**Day 74**

Sango woke up to the sound of birds singing. 

She was in a room, sparsely furnished. It was dark. One wall was entirely made of shoji screens, hastily covered with blankets to prevent light from seeping in. There was a bowl with a washing cloth beside her head, and next to it a jug of water and a cup. 

Her body _ached._ Twisting on to her side sent flashes of white in her vision, but when she looked down at herself—she was naked, save for a breast band and under things—she could see no open wounds. Just bruises—more than she could count, black and red and yellow and mottled, spread across her frame in haphazard, overlapping patterns that made her eyes swim.

With gritted teeth, she dragged an arm to the cup. To her relief, it was filled. But bringing it to her lips was another matter. She ended up half dragging herself to meet it, her split lips aching as she mouthed dryly at the rim and tipped the cup towards her.

It fell over, splashing her face and neck and the floor, but she’d gotten two glorious mouthfuls and so she just pressed her forehead into the damp tatami mat and tried to breath through her aching ribs. Tried to process.

Several minutes later— or was it longer?— there was the sound of wood scrapping open. Sango looked up to find a young woman standing on the threshold of a hallway, staring at her, mouth agape. 

"Ma’am!" the girl squeaked, then quickly rushed to her, helping Sango into a sitting position. Despite the girl’s attempts to be gentle, Sango flinched at every touch—there were no longer places on her body that didn’t burn. 

"Where—" Sango croaked, then paused, shocked. Her voice hardly came out more than a whisper. Like she had been screaming for hours. _Days_. 

The young woman seemed to understand what she was going to say. "You are in _Yamato_ lands. You’ve been here for several days."

"Where—" Sango tried. "Where are the—"

"Your entourage?" the woman shook her head. "They left, all except two. They stayed to take care of you." The girl cocked her head, thinking. "They went out this morning. They have not returned."

When Sango tried to get up, the woman rushed to dissuade her. "Please! Stay. Rest. As long as you need to recover. The inn has already been paid, and if you left before—" the girl bit her lip.

Sango paused, looking at the young woman. She was dressed in a nice kimono, well used but well cared for. Her hands were without callouses. This was no maid.

After a moment, she whispered, "Water?"

Relief flooding her features, the girl rushed to comply.

**Day 76**

Her caretakers did not return that day, or the next. On the third day, when Mina—that was the inn keeper’s daughters name—came into change out the bedding, Sango asked about her belongings. 

The girl hesitated. "You did not come with any. However, there was something left for you."

Later that night after dinner, Mina brought her a long, bundled package. As Sango stared at the bundle wide-eyed, something pitying flashed in the woman’s face and she patted Sango’s knee very gently before leaving to give her privacy. 

Sango stared after her, at the closed shoji screen, then back to the package. She opened the cloth wrapping with trepidation, already knowing what it was and yet finding her mouth dry and her eyes oddly wet. 

It was a sword, a _wakazashi,_ and a dagger. Just like the ones she had carried with her her whole life, except for the detailing on the handles, which were white on the sword and a jade green on the dagger. 

Between the sharpened blades nestled two other objects. The first was a whistle, hand whittled and sanded til its edges were smooth save for the carved waves that had been patterned down its length. It had been cut from the heart wood of a _Jubokko_ tree and been carried on a leather cord, passed down for generations until it had been buried with its last owner. 

The second was a piece of tattered parchment, its edges frayed. On its surface, a familiar scrawl in black ink. 

Sango stared at the parchment for what felt like hours, until the candles gutted themselves and she was left with only the sliver of moon peaking through the gaps in the covered windows.

Slowly, crumpling the parchment in her fist, she set the blades by her mat and picked up the whistle. She ran a thumb over the grooves on its surface, brought it to her lips.

She blew on it, long and hard till her head swam. It made no sound. Not that she could hear, anyway. 

Then she fell to her side, curled in to herself and closed her eyes, the whistle pressed tight to her chest. 

**Day 78**

She had been waiting for two days on a hill outside the village, the highest vantage point she could find. On the second day, Mina had handed her a small wrapped bundle of food with a hopeful smile and Sango had only hesitated a little in taking it. 

She was still unsure of how she felt about being pitied by this young woman. She had a feeling Mina had drawn conclusions based on Sango’s injuries that were not actually true, but Sango had never bothered to correct the notion. Even a few weeks ago she would have balked at the thought of being looked at as powerless, beaten. Now, Sango merely chewed on the thought as she picked her way up the rocky hill, feeling as though she were an outsider in her own body. She was more frustrated by how out of breath she felt, how long it took to crest the hill, the way the pain simmered like a pot of boiling water beneath the surface as she gingerly set herself down on the grass.

Though the bruises were healing, they had not faded. If anything, they looked worse. Her eye was purple, there were dark bands on her throat, her whole back and hips and legs were mottled with fist shaped bruises larger than any humans. And she was lucky. If not for the…healing…she would have fissures up and down her body where her skin had split under the force of blows. She would have broken bones that would never properly heal. She would have…well, she would have _died_. 

Her hand drifted to her waist, to the slip of parchment stashed there. She fingered its frayed edge, looking out into the horizon, waiting. 

Two hours later, he found her. 

She was expecting to see the burning golden glow of twin tails soaring above the canopy of trees. Instead, she saw a glimmer of silver ricocheting in the distance, growing faster as it zigzagged its way in her general direction. She watched it, heart rising in her throat, as it grew closer and closer and then suddenly, as if catching her scent, veered abruptly towards her and dashed forward at break neck speed. 

Inuyasha landed in a graceful leap at the bottom of the hill. But Sango didn’t look into his face. Instead, her eyes were glued to the makeshift sling on his chest, where a bandaged, broken Kirara struggled to free herself, mewing piteously. She couldn’t breathe.

"You’re alive," he was saying quietly, breaking the moment. It wasn’t a statement but it wasn’t quite a question either, and her eyes flicked up and away at the undecipherable look on his face. 

Unable to respond, Sango merely pressed her fist to her chest as Inuyasha walked up the hill and knelt before her. She stretched out shaking hands and he gently placed Kirara in her arms. 

She was so _frail_. Kirara’s body shook as the cat youkai frantically rubbed her skeletal, thin face into Sango’s neck and something was grating itself inside Sango’s chest, over and over again. 

Numb, Sango reached her free hand out towards Inuyasha. He must have hesitated, because it was a few solid seconds before she felt his hand against her palm, the barest of grips as if he was afraid to touch her more than that. The gesture would have been distant even between strangers. Mouth tightening, she grabbed his forearm and firmly tugged him closer, catching him by surprise. 

He nearly fell on top of her. He cursed, hand clamping on her arm, and she couldn’t help stiffening as fire licked up her flesh at his grip. He must of have noticed, cause he immediately tried to pull away.

She refused. She refused to let go of his arm even as he tried to tug it from her.

"Sango," he said finally with frustration and other things she couldn’t name. "I’m hurting you." But she just shook her head and finally, with a sag of his shoulders, he relented. He looked away even as he leaned closer, one arm wrapping around her back and his hand curling into her shoulder, Kirara nestled between them. It wasn’t really a romantic gesture and yet Sango trembled at the intimacy. 

She leaned into the crook of his arm and breathed in the scent of him, earth and loam and familiar. She struggled to say something, to tell him what had happened, but the words wouldn’t come and she didn’t know why.

"You’re alive," he said suddenly. Gruffly. Not _it’s going to be okay._ Not _you’re all right._ And her throat seized. It wasn’t exactly comforting, and yet it felt like a lightning bolt striking her shields, all pretense shattering. 

Traitorous tears fell as she clung to Kirara and to him, muffling her sobs into his shirt. 


End file.
